But it collapsed for reasons that can't be reversed or maneuvered around. For all the talk about the more esoteric reasons for journalism's problems like partis

But it collapsed for reasons that can't be reversed or maneuvered around. For all the talk about the more esoteric reasons for journalism's problems like partisan polarization or Big Tech— which aren't wrong but are mostly higher-order correction terms— the fundamental problem is much more simple: most journalism was paid for by things other than reader revenue. Classified ads, movie showtimes, and a whole bunch of other revenue streams were actually what propped up newspapers; these were all obliterated by the Internet and they won't ever return. At no point in history has journalism ever survived on subscription revenue alone, there was merely an anomalous period where it didn't need to because there were enough sources of supplemental revenue. But now that period is over, and so we have to think about a business model that can survive given the reality of "subscription revenue is not enough and can never be enough".