Even the companies with currently profitable paywalls (WSJ, FT, etc.) are just holdovers from the print economy. The only reason they're surviving now is that people are used to them being the dominant sources of valuable information. But it won't last.
I spend quite a bit of time reading articles on reddit, probably more than I should, but I've noticed that there are fewer linked articles behind paywalls, and when one is posted many readers immediately down vote it because it's behind paywall. Any company that locks up their content is soon going to find that while they may have increased their revenue in the short term, in the long term they've lost their relevance because their customers have found other sources for the same information.
Google, and any other company, by collecting personal information on its customers should have the fiduciary duty to protect that information at any cost. Personally, I'd prefer it if they simply anonymized their services and couldn't disclose personal information, but as long as they choose to collect it and keep it, they should have the responsibility to safeguard it.
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I spend quite a bit of time reading articles on reddit, probably more than I should, but I've noticed that there are fewer linked articles behind paywalls, and when one is posted many readers immediately down vote it because it's behind paywall. Any company that locks up their content is soon going to find that while they may have increased their revenue in the short term, in the long term they've lost their relevance because their customers have found other sources for the same information.
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