I'd never pay for it, either. Since you're one of the biggest stars on HN, it might annoy you that some editors are choosing the stars for this monthly publication. But, that's the "killer feature" of the "old media" approach. Curated content has some big benefits. It saves people from the hassle of wading through a lot of marginal posts. It also helps me when I wind up occasionally missing some gems.
It just about kills me to disagree with you publicly, since I so often find myself up-voting your comments on this site.