"If you never read a paper (because for example, you needed to pay to read it), then you'll not be interested in this news, and you won't see any need to pay for it."

Yet newspapers have been charging for quite some time, and people have been paying to read them, up until they found cheaper, faster, more complete sources.

You're digging yourself into a hole of ignorance if you are only following what you've become accustomed to follow.

Newspapers offer the accidental, and I bet many people enjoy them for that reason. You read things you didn't know would be interesting until you turned the page and there it was.

It's not that there is a cost, it's that despite the cost newspapers are still increasingly inferior to, say, Google News.