I wonder how much of pre-internet newspaper readership was really attributable to people just using the newspaper as a convenient source for mundane information: stock quotes, sports scores, weather, traffic, movie times, etc.

If newspapers do still provide the highest-quality journalism, despite no longer being the most convenient sources of mundane information, but the end result is that newspapers can no longer sustain their business model, then the value of journalism may be grossly inflated.

If few people actually want newspapers, it's not a significant problem if they go away.