You see this same model with legacy enterprise software and other long tail recurring revenue soures. You largely give up on growth, but drop costs to near zero

You see this same model with legacy enterprise software and other long tail recurring revenue soures. You largely give up on growth, but drop costs to near zero if you can and buyout based on the tail that will stick for a while. Sure, it's a dynamic that makes a whole bunch of things terrible. Local news indeed has lost money-making potential and this approach makes sense economically. But the dynamic you describe essentially "zombifies" a whole bunch of enterprises, which in turn makes them fragile and we can see the results today. And yeah, it's not shortsightedness on the part of a single investor, it's shortsightedness on the part of this society.