Comment by MetaWhirledPeas
3 days ago
Were the hypothetical "paywalls everywhere" scenario to play out, sites would quickly consolidate their subscriptions. So a subscription to something like Engadget would get you access to a wide swath of sites, making the paywall a lot more palatable overall. This would be the inevitable outcome because it would be the most natural way for sites to compete with other sites.
It doesn't matter because simply having to pay any amount at all makes those sites inaccessible. Most of the world do not have credit cards.
But that aside, I think what we would see is a lot more Facebookification. A bunch of walled gardens that you pay a subscription for and then you get access to a whole slew of sites that FB buys up. Of course, they will make sure every site ends up toeing their line too.