Maybe initially you wouldn’t know if an article would be good. But over time you could probably make reasonable guesses from the author/headline/title combination.
Great now I need to pay attention to the authors and make a mental mapping of who the good ones are to decide if the friction is worth it. That in itself adds more friction which in turn makes the barrier higher.
It isn't with news though. I am a bit of a news junkie and have actually subscribed to multiple news sources over the past year and I can't name a single journalist from any of them and I am almost certainly average in that way.
