This model does make sense. The only other option would be to put up pay walls on all websites out there, and you would have to pay them directly to gain access to their content.
A few places might manage to leave their stuff open, private blogs, etc, but for the most part news and other typical journalism would die a quick death as most people are unwilling to pay for it. Though, in thinking that through, what we'd probably end up with is a what we had 20 years ago, newspapers, a collection of writers, etc that all work under a single corporate umbrella. So you'd subscribe to one of these services and only see their tiny portion of probably slanted views.