By now, most people have encountered a news paywall. You’ll be browsing social media or your favourite newsletter, tapping a link to a recommended article, only to find it locked behind a subscription.
Over the past decade, many major news publishers have embraced paywalls in Europe and the US. This shift is largely due to three trends: readers predominantly getting their news from the web instead of newspapers, Google and Meta’s sway over digital advertising revenue, and a large chunk of traffic being gobbled up by social media.
