The whole right wing media hustle now is turning politics into a subscription funnel, and yeah liberals do versions of it too. Every crisis becomes "sign up now for the truth" like citizenship is a Patreon tier. I get why independent outlets need money, especially with local news hollowed out and billionaire owners wrecking major papers. But if your political project starts to look like lead gen first, movement second, something's off. We need funding models that don't train people to act like fans buying access. A democracy can't run on promo codes and exclusive drops.