Why YSK: good journalism has a lot of costs (and not one-time-only), in time if not in money, so if any "news" source isn't at least trying to get paid somehow*, then it indicates that the supply at zero price exceeds the demand (it is a "free good"), which means ~~one of two things~~:
Edit: After a lot of discussion and some more thought on my part, I am no longer sure that a single binary choice captures all the possibilities here. The concept of a "free good" is a standard one in economics, with essentially the definition I gave above, and it is still true that most journalism comes with significant costs (and not just in money). So, if there is no effort being made to recover that cost (e.g. by asking for charitable donations, or some other significant material contributions like volunteer work), then I don't see how that "journalism" can be legitimate.
The point I was trying to make is that, e.g., internet sites that claim to offer vast amounts of easy, "quality" information (and it is questionable what that even means), on a regular, ongoing basis, but ask absolutely nothing from anyone in return, are likely some kind of scam. Because, if that were actually true, then they would have no way of actually supporting themselves on a long-term basis. Some people don't care about long-term sustainability, of course, but they don't tend to stay around for very long.
Original text follows.
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a lot of people like and use it but the publisher, or someone backing them, is still paying the substantial costs associated with investigating/researching, editing, and hosting it (and are arguably being quite charitable), or
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not many people find it useful or access it often, but it is still being offered/promoted by someone who has some other motive (not necessarily nefarious, but also not all that charitable).
If the latter, but they still publish timely coverage of "newsworthy" events, which would otherwise make a lot more people want to read it, then they ~~are likely~~ may be (edited) "tabloid"/"propaganda"/"yellow journalism"/"clickbait"/"listicle"/whatever term people are using today for "not a very credible news source".
* Even if that's through asking for charitable donations, though that unfortunately is often not very successful despite the fact that, one might argue, when you benefit and have the financial means to pay but don't, then that is unethical.
Also, note that the existence of barriers to unfettered use can be considered a kind of "price" (from the "buyer's" perspective at least), which is both annoying and can serve to limit the "quantity demanded", making it easier to keep the "quantity supplied" high enough to meet the demand.
I can see that you took note of my commentary on word choice, but you seem to be discounting the idea of charity on the part of whoever runs this hypothetical indie media outlet (see lemmy itself) even as you accept the idea of the audience engaging in charity. Of course, there are scams like PragerU that run at a loss as propaganda outlets, but we can see that they do this by being bankrolled by billionaires.
The idea of a service being "illegitimate" when it is not trying to sell things is bizarre, since your argument seems to lead to the conclusion that "it is outside of the economic framework I have put forward" without explaining the basis for the hypothetical scam.
And I don't I think said they are illegitimate "if they aren't trying to sell things", rather I was trying to say that any large media network is going to need a lot of resources provided by external sources. In the case of Lemmy, that would be all the many instances operated by third parties, who are paying significant hosting fees themselves (and many therefore are asking for donations).
So, if they claim otherwise, that they "don't take help from anyone", then unless they are so small that they just pay for everything right out of their own pocket, then I think they are trying to scam people.
I do not want to discount the possibility of charitable media outlets, but I do think that they are far easier to maintain group cohesion when they are small then when they are large. Once they grow beyond some size (what size specifically I don't know), I think they are all but certain to fracture, partially, into "groups of groups" with more and more major disagreements between larger and larger subgroups. I am not going to say that it is "impossible" for a charity to run a major news outlet, but by that point I think that they will need to be accepting quite a few large donations from outside sources, which brings us back to questioning their independence.