It started because the newspaper industry is looking for new ways to mitigate declining revenue, IMHO. If the newspaper industry was doing well, we _probably_ w

It started because the newspaper industry is looking for new ways to mitigate declining revenue, IMHO. If the newspaper industry was doing well, we _probably_ would be hearing about how they're giving away news to drive eyeballs to sites -- much like how they operated as a newspaper, not a news organization who publishes to the web. Craigslist and eBay are the two standouts who rang the knell. http://news.cnet.com/Report-Craigslist-costing-newspapers-millions/2100-1024_3-5505076.html http://news.cnet.com/Report-Craigslist-costing-newspapers-mi... My understanding is for years, the newspapers gave news away for near free, subsidized by advertising and in the black because of it. Take out the classifieds and you've removed a valuable service to the community and a major revenue source. Now, they're reduced to news organizations. Their revenue has been declining. Aggregators are the current scapegoat and one of the potential revenue modes. Fifteen years ago, I had five choices for daily print news. My two local papers, the USA Today, NYT and the Wall Street Journal. Today, each of them compete against themselves and a litany of other "print" news. CNN, ABC, CBS, and your local TV stations are now "print" publishers too. The competition is even more fierce. The news industry as a whole changed with the internet. You no longer need presses and trucks or 100,000 watt transmitters to distribute news. The sour economy only expedites this shift. Some will come out as agents of change. Others will fight to maintain what they had. These are the ones who are trying to plug something that started long before aggregators. edit: good read -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506483 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506483