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> We used to pay for things - including the news.

Have newspapers or magazines ever been financially sustainable on sale revenue alone? They've always carried ads, and I suspect that's always been a bigger income stream than the cost of buying the paper itself.

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> Have newspapers or magazines ever been financially sustainable on sale revenue alone?

Most certainly not. The hollowing out of classifies by Craigslist in 2000s is what killed most local newspapers.

The division has been more equal in the past. When I was a kid, probably 75% of the neighborhood subscribed to the paper and others, like my parents, bought it regularly on Sunday and certain other days. Perhaps sales was 25-30% of revenue. Advertising was big but a large portion was classified ads. Wikipedia says up to 70% of some newspapers' revenue was classifieds. These ads are unlikely to have much editorial effect, but that revenue has basically gone away. What remains is more perilous to independence, and since the number of print readers has gone way down, also not as important to the advertiser.

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