> How exactly will higher quality news publishers pay for their existence? Most people are conditioned to not pay for it. So where does the money come from?

I can't find the link where I read this, but targeted ads tend to be detrimental for high-quality publications. Targeted ad peddlers are mercenary. If they want to target a high-quality site's audience, they'll run just enough ads to profile them, then target that audience on cheaper, lower-quality sites which that they also frequent.

tl;dr: Targeted ads and tracking mean advertisers have the technology to shaft high-quality sites in favor of cheaper, lower quality ones.