With print subscriptions, the publisher was one clear tollbooth, as unless subscribers paid for delivery, the paper wasn't delivered. That was a leaky model --- there were copies circulated at offices, people would bring and leave papers at cafes, they could be read at libraries or private clubs. But generally, a copy of the paper or magazine had to be bought.

The other tollbooth was the newsstand, where individual copies could be bought from either a manned or unmanned site.

With the Internet and Web, the notion of such tollbooths is largely eliminated. As I've suggested several times in this discussion, the two highly obvious tollbooths are either the ISP (with whom the reader has an existing relationship, though less so in the case of, say, public WiFi), or a taxing authority who could assess a payment on all residents of a region (on the basis that media and an informed public contribute to the common weal). Or perhaps other indirect assessments, as with old legal notice requirements (see: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41261063>).

Beyond that it would devolve into a scenario where entities would begin trying to game whatever system is created to get a cut of the pie.

Forced support is not the answer.

For a tax assessment this would be based on wealth (e.g., property tax) and/or income. For an ISP-based assessment, the allocation might be more challenging, but a differentiation between business and residential usage (with a higher assessment for businesses, again on a progressive scale), and differentiated rates probably on a neighbourhood / metro region basis (so that a household on the Upper West Side and one in Julesburg, CO, would pay widely differing rates), is what I have in mind.

Rationale is that the wealthy have already benefitted mightily from such access, and the poor should not be denied access to media: news, entertainment, books, music, video, whatever.

You say "forced". I say enlighted common weal.

The poor are not denied access this currently. Everything in your argument hinges on the claim that government funded and directed media will be superior to the status quo. Why?

Isn't this what the Apple News+ service offers? I haven't used it, but for US $13 per month Apple says it offers content from over 400 publications. Of course it necessitates using one of the Apple OS platforms, and I've heard both good and bad about the overall design and presentation of the content, but it seems like this kind of service is akin to what you describe.

I'd think this kind of broad offering would appeal to readers more than a single-site subscription. The Apple cost of $13 per month sounds much better than, say, the NY Times cost of $25 every four weeks, but maybe the Apple access to publications is limited or has other problematic attributes.

I don’t think that’s the main problem though. The main reason I unsubscribed is that Apple News+ still has ads and prompts to sign up for newsletters! It’s a usability issue; the newspaper equivalent of torrenting music, archive.is offers a far superior reading experience and just so happens to be free. The industry needs something like Spotify or Steam to fix it.

or HN :)

No, I won't pay a subscription for each random site that gets posted on here. I might pay a few cents, if it's a unified service as you say, but micropayments are 10 years away every year.