NYT's digital arm has a paywall and their digital revenue is something over a half-billion dollars per year. The group that WSJ is part of, NewsCorp's "news and information services" unit, has annual revenues well over a billion dollars.
I'm pretty sure that should cover their server bills.
The point is that it is winners-take-all now. There are a few winners with strong businesses, like the ones you mentioned, but it is not a broadly strong industry. That was not the case with print, where the local paper had some advantages in their home market.
This seems to be kind of just how technology industries work (at least right now): you don't have a broadly strong market for "social news feed", you have Facebook.
I don't believe that was the point of the thread I replied to.
But sure, when you reduce distribution cost to zero, you remove a lot of local advantage. And this isn't new. Improvements in music distribution, starting with the wax cylinder, have been slowly killing the local market for musicians. Why wait until the evening go a few blocks and pay to hear a so-so local band when you can play an amazing one in your house right now?
A summary of the thread, from my perspective: 1. Advertising is the wrong way to monetize, paywalls are the right way, 2. Paywalls don't work because they make people go elsewhere and sites still have expenses, 3. (you) Paywalls do work, NYT and WSJ make lots of money on digital, 4. (me) Yes but that's only because they are the winners in a winners-take-all market.
I don't really disagree with you, my point was just that the fact that paywalls can work for an extremely small set of publishers does not resolve the tension in comments #1 and #2.
I'm pretty sure that should cover their server bills.