Paywalls are a dishonest idea born from the necessity to game page-rank algorithms.

There is nothing stopping these sites from creating login-only paid portals.

They don't. Why? Ranking and the benefits.

It seems like a "have my cake and eat it too." strategy, and i'm not too keen on supporting it, personally.. even more so given that many of these sites are just simply AP 'spin&regurgitate' sites.

I'm waiting on big G to hit paywall sites harder in rankings, but I don't really see it in the cards. Here's hoping.