Let’s start by looking at the very premise that you pay for a newspaper anyway in the first place. Well, you do, but that’s all you do – you pay for the very paper you hold in your hand. Your 70p goes absolutely nowhere to meeting the full costs of what you’re reading – the journalists’ salaries, the IT and all the other component parts of complex business producing a highly perishable manufactured product. The difference is subsidised by advertising or the depth of a proprietor’s pocket – or both. If consumers were truly ‘buying’ and therefore valuing the journalism itself rather than the means of delivery, they’d happily pay £5 per copy of the Daily Rag. But of course they don’t – and won’t ever - but that’s exactly what paywall fans think will happen online.

With a newspaper, all you’ve bought is the delivery channel – the paper and perhaps the space on the newsagent’s counter. Just as now you’ve paid £700 for your home PC, £30 a month for your broadband connection and perhaps another £30 a month for your smartphone.