I'm not sure it's necessarily related to why it doesn't have a paywall (I don't think bloomberg news is opposed to money), but Bloomberg the company started selling computer terminals on wall street in the 80s and made a fortune. Basically, "Hey stock broker, how'd you like to look up stock quotes instantly on a computer instead of..." I'm actually not sure what they were doing before, paper trading slips I guess? "Sort it out at the end of the day"?

"Selling networked computers to banks" wasn't actually as obvious then as you'd think. Wall Street was a relatively boring place and went crazy in the 80s, kind of coinciding with the rise of Bloomberg terminals.

These days, a bloomberg terminal costs $24,000 a year, for a computer and a subscription to Bloomberg's information service, which ostensibly gets high quality and timely market information. It's a good business.

Bloomberg is a really interesting startup story overall.