I'd say their decision making was mostly forced by their drop in ad revenue and subscriptions forced by the internet.

Though I do wish that someone would make a Spotify for news so that I could pay once and get access to all of them and at least give them 10 cents per article or something, because I will never pay the subscription cost any are asking.

As much as I'd like to support them, the price to utility ratio is way the fuck off at the prices they ask now.