It’s a bad sign when your “what’s the solution?” section starts off by admitting you don’t have one. Not to be deterred by this, though, the piece suggests a c

It’s a bad sign when your “what’s the solution?” section starts off by admitting you don’t have one. Not to be deterred by this, though, the piece suggests a couple of shopworn ideas anyway: > Switch over to a monthly subscription plan For this to work you have to put up a paywall, and according to HN conventional wisdom the only thing worse than ads are paywalls, otherwise known as History’s Greatest Monster. > Partner with brands to create sponsored articles Which is a nicer way of saying “just get out of the news business and go into marketing.” > Place a larger emphasis on user donations or promotions So, pledge drives! Hope you like tote bags. Public broadcasting already does this, of course; it doesn’t come near to covering all their expenses. Look, here’s the thing. It’s true, news websites are dumpster fires! But they’re dumpster fires for a reason, namely that nobody has yet come up with a reliable business model that allows them to not be dumpster fires. They’re dumpster fires because that’s what happens when the only choices available are all bad ones. If you’ve got an actual way to cut this knot, lots of people in the news business would be very interested in hearing it. But just telling them to stop sucking so hard, man isn’t particularly helpful.