Dave Winer, online guru and the real founder of RSS, writes that constructing a paywall for content is no solution to what ails the news business.
"As a user of news, I'm sure the future is in shortening the distance between the sources and the readers," he writes. "The idea of putting up a paywall will just force more reporters outside of it if they want to do their jobs and shrink the publications further. It's no solution."
His principal point: "With all due respect, putting up a 'pay wall' is exactly what these organizations don't need. They need to decentralize, get further out into the world, not hole-up behind a wall and try to tough it out."
