This might get worse. The free open web was economically dependent on reaching large audiences by search and social, and supported by advertising. Without that

This might get worse. The free open web was economically dependent on reaching large audiences by search and social, and supported by advertising. Without that scale, you're looking at more paywalls and membership programs. The smaller the niche, the more expensive and tighter the program needs to be. A lot of that gating went into effect after social media start suppressing links. If you believe in making quality products available to mass audiences—information wants to be free and all that—this is a problem.