I’m using this column to rant about something that drives me bonkers as a journalist who subscribes to roughly 10 news sites: Those pesky paywalls.

To be clear, I absolutely believe readers should pay for the content they consume. Quality journalism costs money. Reporters need to be out covering stories, editors need to shape and verify them, and publishers need revenue to keep the whole operation running. I have no issue paying for journalism.

What I do have an issue with is the paywall experience itself, which is often cumbersome, confusing, and unnecessarily hostile to paying customers. It baffles me that so many news publishers seem indifferent to how frustrating their systems are.

And when I call customer support at my local paper, the tech staff often treats me as if I’m completely clueless about technology. The conversation quickly devolves into the digital equivalent of, “Have you tried turning your computer on?”

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Logging On Should Be Seamless

After years of charging for digital subscriptions, you’d think publishers would have refined the process into something seamless by now. Instead, it often feels surprisingly disjointed. Switch from your laptop to your phone, open a different browser, and suddenly you’re being asked to log in again, verify your subscription, disable privacy settings, or navigate some other obstacle standing between you and content you’ve already paid for.

What makes it especially frustrating is that these systems often seem designed more to block access than to recognize legitimate subscribers. Paying customers end up treated like freeloaders simply because they changed devices, enabled privacy protections, or triggered some odd algorithm.

If I’m paying for access, why am I constantly forced to jump through hoops just to use the site?

At some point, all that friction starts to undermine the very value of subscribing. Readers aren’t just paying for journalism. They’re also paying for convenience, reliability, and a reading experience that respects their time.

If publishers want people to support quality journalism, the access experience should feel effortless, not like a constant negotiation with a malfunctioning gatekeeper.

83% of Americans Don’t Pay for News: Pew Research

This comes at a time when the vast majority of Americans refuse to pay for news. A 2025 Pew Research Center study found that 83% of Americans did not pay for news in the past year. When respondents were asked why, the most common answer was that they believed they could get the same information elsewhere for free.

This is a point that most news publishers seem to overlook. If readers don’t have easy access to their high-quality journalism, how are they supposed to recognize its value in the first place?

The problem is even worse with stories promoted on social media. You click on an article from a publication you’ve subscribed to for years, only to be treated like a complete stranger the moment you land on the site. So they want you to click on the story, but only if you know the secret computer handshake.

And it’s not as if the technology doesn’t exist to solve this. The tech industry has mastered far more complicated problems involving authentication, streaming rights, and cross-device syncing. Which makes it hard not to wonder why digital news subscriptions still feel stuck in an earlier era of the internet.

It’s no surprise that news sites without paywalls are attracting growing readership, while traditional outlets seem to be stuck with stagnant audiences. This trend is visible in my hometown as well: The local paper, once the dominant source of regional news, is now struggling to boost its weak traffic.

My advice to news publishers: If paywalls are part of your business model, make them work properly. No excuses.

About the Author

Jim Boren is the executive director of the Institute for Media and Public Trust at Fresno State and an adjunct faculty member at the university. He teaches advanced reporting in the Media, Communications and Journalism Department. He retired in 2018 as Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of The Fresno Bee. You can read his commentary at this link.

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