Public libraries that provide any content for free have provided "entitlement" and a free dispersal of knowledge. Many would think this is even a good idea. Nor did the advent of Free Libraries kill literature, it enlivened and instilled it for all to see and thus creating authors and readers. Again, a good thing.
Access to knowledge has been free, and easily available, long before the internet.
This is a false equivalence. And I'm a huge supporter of open source software and free sharing of information on the Internet, who thinks anti piracy laws are misguided at best.
Libraries paid for books, and required effort to access. It's an economy of scale issue. Libraries can and could only exist because enough other people paid for the convenience/luxury of permanently owning the books and/or having the news delivered to your home.
On the Internet, everyone has access to information from anywhere they have a phone, so suddenly said economies of scale don't work. It's not a majority of the buying public essentially subsidizing libraries, it's the majority of the public no longer paying for news. Which leads to advertising being the only source of revenue, specifically shitty web ads dependent on clicks. Thus click bait becomes the only sustainable way for these sites to continue to pay their staff.
I'm not certain I'd use the Athletic enough to want to pay for it, but I strongly support paying direct subscriptions for well written news. It's the only viable way I see that good news survives, other than state subsidies.
Honestly I think I might have just convinced myself to give the Athletic a go by writing this out, lol.
