News behind pay walls is no help to democracy

There have been various proposals to "save journalism" from the crisis brought on by digitalization. But by and large these ideas have less to do with meeting the information needs of a democratic society than with preserving the profit potential of existing media outlets. Take the various suggestions as to how to get news outlets to stop giving away their content for free. At root, the pay-wall proposal is an attempt to turn news into a commodity again, something that people are willing to pay for. Central to the idea of a commodity is scarcity: People pay for things that aren't available to everyone, that they won't benefit from unless they can afford them. The reason there are so many uninsured people in the U.S. is because healthcare is treated as a commodity here—which inevitably means that some people aren't going to get it.