I think it’s a good enough business model, if we want high quality indepth reporting where they do analysis on dumps of databases based on FOIA requests (really time consuming), and things that require more than surface level reporting, then people need to have this as a fulltime job. A lot of tech newssites just regurgitate news they get from big tech, or do surface level reporting and opinion pieces. While that is useful as well, it’s not investigative and as in-depth.
We want professional journalists for a reason. We need it as a society. We need to be sure that they don’t do harm to innocent people, that they actually have proof and sources etc. We need people to hold people and companies accountable. Someone has to actually produce the content that other newssites refer to.
They need to get paid on a consistent basis, just like everyone else. That is the most sustainable way we have in a capitalist society.
Small donations from a vast amount of people would be perfect, but is hard to achieve. Which is why they have probably gone for paywalled subscriptions and ads.
Thanks, I’ll checkout more of the sites you added. This seems interesting and good journalism. I try to mainly consume content that have a high signal/noise ratio, so quality is everything.
They also don’t have paywalls on their news items, just on the behind-the-scenes and bonus content.
They require an email to read the articles – they were being ripped off by AI News sites iirc–, but you can use an email alias and they’re fine with that.
I think it’s a good enough business model, if we want high quality indepth reporting where they do analysis on dumps of databases based on FOIA requests (really time consuming), and things that require more than surface level reporting, then people need to have this as a fulltime job. A lot of tech newssites just regurgitate news they get from big tech, or do surface level reporting and opinion pieces. While that is useful as well, it’s not investigative and as in-depth.
We want professional journalists for a reason. We need it as a society. We need to be sure that they don’t do harm to innocent people, that they actually have proof and sources etc. We need people to hold people and companies accountable. Someone has to actually produce the content that other newssites refer to.
They need to get paid on a consistent basis, just like everyone else. That is the most sustainable way we have in a capitalist society.
Small donations from a vast amount of people would be perfect, but is hard to achieve. Which is why they have probably gone for paywalled subscriptions and ads.
A lot of non-profits I listed focus on in-depth articles and investigations.
Example: https://themarkup.org/investigations/2025/02/13/dating-app-tinder-hinge-cover-up
Thanks, I’ll checkout more of the sites you added. This seems interesting and good journalism. I try to mainly consume content that have a high signal/noise ratio, so quality is everything.
If you wanna checkup some more tech articles websites that does not have paywalls:
Thank you! I’ll check them out and probably add several to my RSS reader.
They also don’t have paywalls on their news items, just on the behind-the-scenes and bonus content.
They require an email to read the articles – they were being ripped off by AI News sites iirc–, but you can use an email alias and they’re fine with that.