They are not alone in charging for on-line news. Foster's Daily Democrat allows 3 free reads per day, Concord Monitor is hit and miss whether you can read a particular article or not, Boston Globe: you cannot even check out the obituaries without a subscription, just to name a few.
In all three of these, the rationale put out by the publishers is that paper edition circulation has gone down with the readiness of online editions, and that those who do not have computers should not be penalized by having to pay for the paper where the online was free.
While I enjoy "reading the newspapers" over my morning coffee, I do understand the need for subscriptions. Eventually, I will have to decide which paper(s) I want to subscribe to, based on content and cost. In the short term, it will be LDS and some others that remain free.
The internet is free once you get connected, it is the content on the internet that may or may not be free.
