This unfortunately helps sets a precedent for what the internet is going to look like in the future. Even the most basic things will be behind a paywall.
You cant even read a fucking news article from New York Times, who made 173.91 million dollars last year
A lot of things are already like that. IIUC this is restrictions on the API not the subs themselves. If you'd like you can still go to the site to download specific subs. What you can't do is use bazarr to bulk download subs. Personally I bought vip since I found the free tier API limit pretty bad and I didn't think the price was so bad for what you get back. Feel free to disagree tho. Before I automated my setup I was just manually searching for subs for movies I wanted and that worked pretty well and will continue to do so if you'd prefer that.
Tv news is a relatively new development and TV news is entirely founded by ads and as a way to drive viewers to a channel to keep them for other programmes.
I don't know what is so controversial about this statement. Investigative reporting is fucking expensive. The people who do it need to eat. If you're not paying for it, who is?
True, but just look at how much better it has gotten in the last couple decades. Putting the news behind the paywall runs the risk of ending the battle for impressions and might force nuance into well researched stories.