You do realize this argument is so vacuous, it would apply to someone torching your house, right?

Simply because the words could be applied to another situation doesn’t mean no thought was put into them. So no, I do not realize that the argument is vacuous.

I’ve simply stated that you can either fight change or embrace it.

In this context I mean that many web users do not want to view their content with advertisements or be tracked through advertising. Attempting to force them to is to push against user behavior (fighting change).

I don’t believe users will change their behavior if you try and force them to.

I believe that by embracing the users behaviour we can learn how to make it work.

I think that might require letting go of our predetermined notions of what “journalism” is and how it should be funded. I think we need to be more open to reviewing why people paid for journalism in the first place and how the need it fulfilled is met today.

Harmful changes can and should be fought. Journalism plays a vital role in democracies. Journalism is expensive. Someone needs to pay for it.

“Harmful changes should be fought” - Harmful is a pretty context dependent word in this situation.

“Journalism places a vital role in democracies” - what role is that? (I’m not disagreeing, I simply want to know your opinion).

“Journalism is expensive” - does it need to be? Why is that?

“Someone needs to pay for it” - This seems quite vacuous. If the thing is valuable then someone will likely pay for it (if they can be convinced of the value and it’s realized).

It’s not readers who pay for it now though is it? It’s advertising companies since they buy the ads. We’re not asking people to pay for it we’re asking them to be visually and audibly distracted into buying products and services in return for journalism.

Perhaps this is not a fair deal for many anymore?