> Old newspapers are going out of business thanks to competition from ad-supported websites that operate as middlemen for news delivered via internet.

And when the newspaper goes out of business, will the aggregators just sprout newsrooms to replace their free sources of information? I doubt it.

Aggregation of news only works if there's news to aggregate. We have already seen local and hyperlocal news wither on the vine, and Google hasn't exactly expressed interest in sending someone down to the local courthouse or county meeting.

You're arguing a different point than the person you're responding to. You're correct of course, on the point that aggregators only function so long as they have content to aggregate. But that doesn't mean that aggregators don't also promote further market consolidation. I don't think many people are arguing that publications like AP, Bloomberg, NYT, Reuters, Fox News (I know I know, but you can't pretend they aren't a major org), CNN, etc. are dying. What's dying is /local/ newspapers that might not offer robust world views but nonetheless often represent the most comprehensive source for stories of local significance like police controversies, local government corruption, community happenings, etc.

NYT has flirted with death before. The Chicago Tribune went through the bankruptcy wringer. Just this year the owner of several regional newspapers, also the second-largest newspaper chain in the country, declared bankruptcy: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/media/mcclatchy-bankruptcy/in... The first biggest was merely acquired.

AP isn't a publication, it's a co-op association that syndicates stories, so it actually also suffers from the aggregators' problems.

> And when the newspaper goes out of business, will the aggregators just sprout newsrooms to replace their free sources of information? I doubt it.

Well that's the longer term problem. Eventually because they run out of real news sources, they have to start regurgitating -some- form of content.

You see it with some of the 'news' sites for tech, especially the 'older' ones. At some point (usually after original owners have left, as they were the ones with a passion for actual journalism) you see the content goes from investigative and genuinely curious to a state where you can tell that just about every article was a regurgitated PR.

IOW in the long term this is a bad thing, as it means that you'll see more 'sponsored' news in the future.

For newspapers: Ask for donation or promote subscriptions, almost no one will mind, but don't spam us with ads and tracking, without consent. Then we can talk. Unless you honest up, there is nothing we will talk about.

I disagree.

If you're speaking about people on HN, then you're possibly right. (Debatable how much though)

But people in general will mind being asked to open their wallets, to enter their payment details into a website that they don't want to trust with sensitive info while they don't mind seeing (and ignoring) a few ads.

Actually I was only taking about myself and how I see it, but perhaps this view is more prevalent on HN than in other communities, yes. I'd like to think that is, because people on HN are more technical and more informed about how this stuff works, than the average Internet visitor.

Anyway, they could offer people to support them for example via GNU Taler, which aims to keep the "buyer" anonymous and the seller not anonymous, so the problem of entering payment detail is out of the way, using a free software solution.

Historically, advertising has always been the main source of income for almost all non-state news organizations, so I don't see any reason to think a non-advertising model would work on the Internet.