Read All About How Paywalls Are Bad For Democracy, Right Behind This Paywall

Well, hey, let’s start this article by noting that Techdirt has no paywall, no annoying or intrusive advertising. And we almost never even bug people about the fact that there are many ways to support the site, including getting early access to some articles, the ability to join our Insider Discord, and other features as well. And we really do rely on support from readers to keep doing what we do without a paywall or other nuisances.

And a key reason that we don’t paywall our writing is because we think it diminishes the value of it. Techdirt is about helping more people understand issues around tech, policy, business, law, and civil liberties, and we can’t do a very good job of that if it’s all hidden behind a paywall.

Indeed, there has been a flood of articles from deep thinkers all about how dangerous paywalling all our news is for democracy over the last few years, with the clearest one being Nathan Robinson’s “The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free.”

But that was hardly the first to raise the topic. Buzzfeed’s Jonah Peretti said more or less the same thing in 2017. That was, you know, a few years before he shut down Buzzfeed News.

But it’s not hard to find variations on this headline basically everywhere you look:

• Democracy Dies With Paywalls
• Democracy dies behind paywalls
• Democracy dies behind the paywall: a critique of elite journalism

The latest entry into this category comes from the lofty perches of the Atlantic. They also titled their piece, by Richard Stengel, “Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls.”

In it, though, Stengel puts on his advocacy hat to make the case that journalism should be free, at least through the 2024 US election. There’s just one big problem. Stengel apparently failed to convince his own publisher, because, well, take a look:

If you can’t see that, it’s the article we’re talking about. It shows the headline and the subhead reading “The case for making journalism free—at least during the 2024 election” followed by a popup noting “To read this story, sign in or start a free trial.”

Oops.

That’s not to say the article is bad. It’s actually quite good. It just feels a bit on the ironic side. From that paywalled article:

Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism. And they get in the way of the public being informed, which is the foundation  of democracy. It is a terrible time for the press to be failing at reaching people, during an election in which democracy is on the line. There’s a simple, temporary solution: Publications should suspend their paywalls for all 2024 election coverage and all information that is beneficial to voters. Democracy does not die in darkness—it dies behind paywalls.

The problem is not just that professionally produced news is behind a wall; the problem is that paywalls increase the proportion of free and easily available stories that are actually filled with misinformation and disinformation. Way back in 1995 (think America Online), the UCLA professor Eugene Volokh predicted that the rise of “cheap speech”—free internet content—would not only democratize mass media by allowing new voices, but also increase the proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories, which would then destabilize mass media.

Some of us out here in the cheap speech seats continue to fight the good fight of providing information that is beneficial to voters, but sometimes it means we need to deal with impossible paywalls on our own. And, also, continually seek out new business models.

And, look, most people recognize that the media business is facing a ton of challenges these days. There are reports of journalist layoffs all the time. The internet effectively “unbundled” the package of things that made the newspaper worth buying as a whole in the past (classifieds, sports, comics, news, reviews, etc.) and made it so that each bit could be produced separately, but, perhaps, without the corresponding business model to prop it up.

Because of that, it’s no surprise that desperation sets in. And when desperation sets in, too many people go for the easy shot: “we need money, people should pay us, so we have money.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t take the reality of the competitive landscape, the market, and the information ecosystem into account. Charging for news online might work a lot better if there wasn’t so much competitive stuff freely available.

Many people point out that before the internet, most news required a subscription (leaving aside things like libraries and free weeklies and whatnot). However, when there is so much information available for free, putting all of the good, credible information behind a paywall can allow the “free” zone to be flooded with shit.

In his (paywalled) piece against paywalls, Stengel argues that paywalls are one of the major reasons that American trust in media is so low. He assumes that what most people see as media is mostly terrible crap that they get for free, while the good journalism is behind a paywall. I’m not entirely convinced that’s true, and it would be great to see some data on that. But anecdotally, I don’t think the reason the account MAGAhat1488 thinks the press is the enemy of the people isn’t because he doesn’t want to plunk down for a New Yorker subscription.

To be fair to Stengel (though, not to his publisher at the Atlantic, which could have easily lifted the paywall), he admits to the irony:

The best way to address these challenges is for newsrooms to remove or suspend their paywalls for stories related to the 2024 election. I am mindful of the irony of putting this plea behind The Atlantic’s own paywall, but that’s exactly where the argument should be made. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably paid to support journalism that you think matters in the world. Don’t you want it to be available to others, too, especially those who would not otherwise get to see it?

Now, of course, the bigger underlying issue is that news orgs need sustainable business models (hey, reminder: support Techdirt!). But, as Stengel notes, a lot of publications did lift their paywalls during the height of the pandemic and actually found that it helped rather than hurt their business:

During the pandemic, some publications found that suspending their paywall had an effect they had not anticipated: It increased subscriptions. The Seattle Times, the paper of record in a city that was an early epicenter of coronavirus, put all of its COVID-related content outside the paywall and then saw, according to its senior vice president of marketing, Kati Erwert, “a very significant increase in digital subscriptions”—two to three times its previous daily averages. The Philadelphia Inquirer put its COVID content outside its paywall in the spring of 2020 as a public service. And then, according to the paper’s director of special projects, Evan Benn, it saw a “higher than usual number of digital subscription sign-ups.”

The Tampa Bay Times, The Denver Post, and The St. Paul Pioneer Press, in Minnesota, all experienced similar increases, as did papers operated by the Tribune Publishing Company, including the Chicago Tribune and the Hartford Courant. The new subscribers were readers who appreciated the content and the reporting and wanted to support the paper’s efforts, and to make the coverage free for others to read, too.

I have always argued that it’s best to make the core reporting free. You can then charge for other things and see if you can get people to support you. It could be things like events, or early access to articles (as in the case of Techdirt!), or access to the reporters. It sounds like the COVID paywall removals discovered the same kinda thing: people were interested in paying for something to support the paper delivering them good news.

The journalism acted as an advertisement for the paper itself in many ways. News orgs need to lean into that element. Let the journalism act as promotion, and find other ways to get people to pay to support.

There are ways to do it, but it seems odd to advocate for it behind a paywall.