Take a step back in time to 2000 with this Wired article about newspapers trying to charge websites for linking to them!
Yes, you read that correctly. Back in the day it seems the e-neanderthals were trying to charge people for sending them readers.
Newspapers have had such a hard time with the internet. I still don’t know how they stay afloat when news is free, better, and easier to access on the web now more than ever.
Poor guys. Charging for the “privilege” of linking to them must have been when they first saw the writing on the wall: papers were going to die someday, better get some cash fast!
I had a guy threaten to sue me once for linking to his lousy site. Well after 2000. It was like running into a caveman at a Mensa meeting!
Hard to believe how far we’ve come. (Most of us anyway)