>they weren't selling on an article by article basis

there were literally newspaper boys on the streets yelling an outrageous headline and making you pay two cents to read the article itself. I don't think subscription papers existed in large amounts during that time.

> newspaper boys on the streets yelling an outrageous headline

it's weirdly hilarious to me to think that urban sidewalks used to be analogous to facebook...

When you paid for a newspaper, you paid for the lurid headlines, the coverage of local politics, the funny pages, the investigative journalism, the sports reporting, the crossword etc etc. Nobody in management was entirely sure what part of that mix actually sold newspapers; editors had a large degree of discretion over what went in the paper and who got paid.

Ad-supported online journalism has unbundled news and precisely quantified each part. Management know exactly what each piece of "content" earns. Editors can no longer pretend that the prestige of serious reporting is a worthwhile investment.

Ad-supported online journalism is now almost entirely dependent on traffic from social media. As we have learned from the "fake news" imbroglio, reputation means almost nothing in this arena. You're only as good as your next clickbait headline.

As I see it, the only future for quality journalism is subscription-based, one way or another. Adsense is killing journalism.