I don't disagree that reading news articles online today is a deeply unenjoyable experience. At the same time, I think not enough people acknowledge that the decision to put so much content online for free is how we ended up in this hellscape. Even when a website has a paywall, the cost of the paywall often dwarfs what you would have paid for a print equivalent of the same paper or journal, which is what enabled the flourishing of journalism in the 20th century.