3 ms·

> Free News websites almost 100% consist of ads trash . Most folks don't want to pay for news, but how do you pay journalists so you have an informed citizenry

• choo-t 5mo ago
  Donation.
  • anigbrowl 5mo ago
    You're gonna have to expand on that. I'm not going to pull out my credit card to subscribe to every random small town paper or TV station that might have a newsworthy story I want to read every 5 years. Also, almost every news site I read is drowned in advertising, visual cruft and dark patterns (eg autoplay video that are deliberately annoying to close in order to maximize play time), and I don't know what a site is going to serve before I click on it.
    • choo-t 5mo ago
      You don't have to donate to all of them, or even donate at all as long as enough people donate. They tend to feature a call to donation instead of advertising, with prominent progress bar about how much they need this month/semester/year instead of advertising. Still visual crust, but much more palatable.
• jpadkins 5mo ago
  In the 90s, the business model was bundle the news with classifieds (classifieds were the main profit source for print newspapers, inline ads only covered the cost of paper, ink and distribution). The web unbundled news and classifieds, and we have been without a working business model ever since.