• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, June 24, 2025

The great majority of Americans do not pay for paywalls. Why should they when they can get the same information elsewhere for free?

That seems to be their thinking, judging by a new report from the Pew Research Center. 

Of the consumers polled, 83% have not paid for news in the past year. But 17% have paid or donated to a news source. 

Yet paywalls are ubiquitous: 38% of the respondents run into them often or extremely often and 36% somewhat frequently. 

What keeps most people from paying? They say:

• There are plenty of other free news articles—49% 
• They’re not interested enough to pay—32%
• It’s too expensive—10% 
• The news provided is not good enough to pay for—8% 

What do such readers do when they hit a paywall? They: 

• Try to find the information somewhere else—53% 
• Give up on accessing the information—32% 
• Try to acess the article without paying—11%
• Pay for access—1%
• Something else—2% 

Tolerance for paywalls is divided by politics and generation. 

Of those polled, 21% of Democrats and Democrative-leaning independents have paid for news in the past year, versus 14% of Republicans and whose who lean that way.  

At the same time, 25% of consumers ages 65 and older have paid for news in the past year, compared to only 12% in the 18-29 category. 

When it comes to income, only 8% in the lowest bracket group have paid for news. In contrast, 30% at the highest income level have done so. 

Meanwhile, 20% of White Americans have paid for news, as have 11% of Black Americans and 10% of Hispanic Americans. 

Paywalls are annoying, and there are too many of them. But newsrooms are desperate to raise money. 

These findings are from Wave 165 of Pew’s American Trends Panel, in which 9,482 panelists were surveyed in March 2025.