This is a very good point, and I'm guessing something that has blocked this model from working in the past - it's totally natural that newspapers wouldn't want

This is a very good point, and I'm guessing something that has blocked this model from working in the past - it's totally natural that newspapers wouldn't want to lose control/ownership of their subscriber base. And I think you're right that that implies that it might be much better to set this up as a JV/cooperative between various papers, with a software arm that charges fees to the parent organization, but that doesn't own the core assets (those being owned by the papers). Would also need to devise some way to get out of the coop, or structure it so that the members feel confident that it won't paint them into a terrible corner. I'm not the right person to build this, it's mostly a BD problem (and I have a very long to-do list anyway), but I hope someone takes a stab at doing it right. Seems like various people have tried to do it as a more traditional startup, but I think the danger to the publications is probably too great with that structure, which would make it much harder to get buy in.