> You're not a potential customer, so a non-entity in their concerns.

A small correction: I am a potential customer, at least in the general sense. I am someone that subscribes to news publications as I already pointed out. Who I pay in any given month is not set in stone, and the news market is still somehow strangely dynamic with new options replacing old ones all the time.

But if I’m paying, then it’s a subscriber-provider relationship; not a virtual bazaar transaction made by clicking a link.