Widespread access would be great, but why do so many have the expectation that the producers of news should also be the subsidizers of its production? It's like saying everyone should have access to free healthcare (and they should), and that it should be paid for by the hospitals themselves.

They just expect that THEY shouldn’t have to directly subsidize it because for decades, they didn’t. Advertisers did. We don’t “subscribe” to other public goods, like parks, libraries, emergency services. News is a public good, but we don’t treat it as one.

Okay yes, but how do you expect them to be funded now? Because the advertising model is clearly inadequate and incentivizes "click bait" and other bad behavior. Simply declaring they should be free doesn't say how.

How journalism should be funded is an important issue, but your question was WHY do people expect to have access to news without paying for it. It’s because they already have free access to a ton of other information. Hospitals are a good analogy, but not perfect. … 1/

Everyone needs access to health care. But what if there were two types of hospitals: One type is more likely to harm than help patients, but patients tend not to notice because these hospitals are free and they’re easy to find. … 2/

The other type typically offers good care, and it charges patients — not per visit, but per year. Suppose a patient wants to use a different doctor once or twice — maybe they’re out of town for a week, their local hospital doesn’t offer the service they need, or they just want a second opinion … 3/

They have to pay for a whole year of service for each doctor they see. Practically everyone is going to choose a substandard hospital at least once in a while. When free hospitals are a dime a dozen, it’s hard for most people to justify “subscribing” to every doctor they want to access. … 4/

If the people who ran the good hospitals were more concerned about making people healthy than about turning a profit, they’d find a way to make their higher-quality care more accessible. … 5/

So what if there were a third option: nonprofit hospitals that offer good health care for free or for a very low price. … 6/

You probably already use nonprofit news outlets that do good journalism and make it accessible to all. Corporations don’t because they care more about $ than about the public good. By putting up paywalls, they’re incentivizing people to engage with free garbage in lieu of quality journalism. 7/7

No, my question was why do people criticize the news organizations themselves for not providing the content for free

“Why do so many have the expectation that the producers of news should also be the subsidizers of its production?” Their expectation is that it’s subsidized by *someone* without the need for them to subscribe. You’re inferring that they mean the owner/producer, but that’s not the only option.

I hate to make the obvious point though.

That news is not necessarily serving our democracy anymore? Because profit supersedes public service. Corporatization of news was bad for democracy.

This is an opinion piece.