The problem with your assumption there is that both of those things cost money. The benefit ratio for a cheap, but crappy camera to an expensive one might be $250 to $1000, about a 4x ratio, that's a fairly low, finite and often measurable improvement on that camera. That ratio might be acceptable for someone who wants a high quality camera.
With news content it's free vs a few hundred dollars a year, more if you want multiple paid sources, unless you find that all of those free sources including BBC, AP, etc are so bad that they provide negative value and just waste your time then it's in your best interest (infinite ratio) to try to get by with those free sources, ultimately the information from most news articles is by and large equivalent. If Google is able to raise those higher quality free sources to the top of results, that provides much better value to users than suggesting paid sources - most users on finding a paid source will just click the back button and pick another source, the paid source having just wasted their time completely.
> unless you find that all of those free sources including BBC, AP, etc are so bad that they provide negative value and just waste your time then it's in your best interest (infinite ratio) to try to get by with those free sources
So, like the GP said, that's "a broken definition of 'value'" on the face!
Wouldn't you at least concede that if some sources do in fact provide negative value, it might be preferred to connect those sources that do consistently provide value, directly with even some small reward (like a subscription, maybe a per-article cost) in exchange for consistently providing positive value?
How do content creators make a return on their investments, is it meant to be indirectly, through advertising, or is it some other way I haven't thought of that will recoup their costs)
This is all nonsense anyway and I don't believe any of it. Information has to be free, and it's either all free or none of it is. The paywall is wrong, if it seeks to prevent us from sharing information then it will fail, and Google, a part of the system of freedom, is properly set up to route around the damage of censorship inflicted by asserters of copyrights. The paywalls that don't provide free information, moved down or were delisted in the rankings like I think should happen.
If growth in your business model depends on broadening the subscriber-ship and thus reach of your own information, but also on limiting the proliferation of your own information, then it is wrong too. I don't know what this means for news media companies that have to turn a profit for their shareholders; I guess I can safely say their concerns are not my concerns.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch another episode of Black Mirror.
I think that content creators should get paid, but I don't want them to try to put DRM chips in our brains to make sure we're all paying for whatever information we consume.
I don't think it's right that they carve out this valley between their legally afforded copyright protections and my fair-use rights meant to assure I can never use my fair-use rights even after their copyrights are long expired (as if it was even possible for a copyright to expire anymore.)
Yes, I am a little off-topic from WSJ Paywall, but it's all one discussion. How do content creators get paid in my ideal version of reality? At the pleasure of content consumers. What can content creators do when that's demonstrated not to be working? IDK not restrictive digital rights management schemes, tho.
There are no easy answers that would satisfy me as either a content consumer or creator.
With news content it's free vs a few hundred dollars a year, more if you want multiple paid sources, unless you find that all of those free sources including BBC, AP, etc are so bad that they provide negative value and just waste your time then it's in your best interest (infinite ratio) to try to get by with those free sources, ultimately the information from most news articles is by and large equivalent. If Google is able to raise those higher quality free sources to the top of results, that provides much better value to users than suggesting paid sources - most users on finding a paid source will just click the back button and pick another source, the paid source having just wasted their time completely.