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.