Other than the Dope (where it’s not mandatory(, the only websites I pay for are The New York Times and the Washington Post.
I’ve subscribed to the online NYT for many years and it’s a cost I never regret. I added the Post in the Trump era and will probably drop it later this year (either sanity will return or the future will be too bleak to want to read about).
The Times (and probably the Post) don’t have to worry much about their sustained viability. On the other hand, with so many free online sources, many, maybe most, traditional ‘newspapers’ are gonna fold (which is a bad thing IMO).
Anyway, do you pay to subscribe to any online newspapers?
I get my local newspaper (Sunday delivery and unlimited online access) for an inexpensive $5/month, and it’s a very good publication. I’m on the verge of signing up for the NYTimes, but haven’t bit the bullet yet.
WaPo but I wait until they send me an offer in the $30/yr range – and then immediately cancel & disconnect my card so I don’t get a surprise $150 charge a year later.
I only subscribe to Le Devoir (a Québec-wide newspaper) at this point.
The Canadian government has announced a new tax deduction for online news subscriptions; I don’t think it’s in force yet. I expect it will make these subscriptions more popular in Canada.
I subscribe to the New York Times and the Toronto Star online. For the Star I get the replica edition, which is an electronic version of the physical paper, which they sell separately from web site access. Recently they have also added free access to the Wall Street Journal for Star subscribers, so I’ve got that going for me.
I work at a university so I have an .edu email address, which usually gets me a year or few of many major newspapers free, or at least at a fairly steep discount.
I got WaPo for free for several years, and then it was converted to a paid subscription but I pay the “academic rate” of $5/month.
I used to have others but I’ve long used up all of my free access, and WaPo tends to be the only one I regularly read, so that’s the one I kept.
Ditto to all three of those, plus The Atlantic online. I also pay for my local paper online. There’s nothing much to it, but occasionally something happens locally that I need to know about. And I want to support them. I don’t watch any TV news and only listen to NPR when I’m in the car (which isn’t much now that I’m retired).
I also pay for The Dope because I support it and it’s the right thing to do.