Comment by SwellJoe

Some small rural papers never stopped being primarily print because a significant portion of their readers don't have home internet, but those papers often run as part of a charitable trust, because they can't make enough money otherwise. e.g. the Georgia Trust for Local News owns a bunch of small-town papers in Georgia. And, while you can get access to those papers and some local articles via their web portal the actual paper are PDFs behind a paywall, rather than a website (https://courierheraldtoday.com/e-editions/).

Often those small rural papers are the organ for county or municipal government (e.g. for publishing legal notices and such), and they have print editions because it's required by law.

But, I don't think there's any way to sustainably run a for-profit newsroom in a small town, without grants and large donors, print or web or some combination of the two.