That's sad. I was never a regular reader of the H, but when I did come across their articles, I found them very well written and informative.
I'm surprised they haven't tried a subscription model like LWN. LWN has encountered similar problems, and been on the brink of shutdown before, but every time they have announced this they have subsequently managed to increase subscriptions enough to stay afloat. The nice thing about subscriptions as opposed to a one-time donation drive is that it becomes a sustainable revenue stream that they can depend on, rather than a one-time injection of cash that dries up quickly.
LWN's subscription model seems to work really well. A subscription just means you get access to subscriber's only articles a week before everyone else; so if you don't need to stay absolutely on top of every development, you can read for free. There are different levels of subscriptions, ranging from $3.50/month to $50/month, so it's close to a "pay what you want" model (there are some slight differences in features you get at the different levels, but they are mostly equivalent). And subscribers are allowed to generate links that they can share with other people to content that is still subscriber-only, so you can still discuss an article if you feel like, submit it to HN, or the like; they just ask that people don't abuse it by providing a feed of all subscriber-only articles or something of the sort.
I'm surprised they haven't tried a subscription model like LWN. LWN has encountered similar problems, and been on the brink of shutdown before, but every time they have announced this they have subsequently managed to increase subscriptions enough to stay afloat. The nice thing about subscriptions as opposed to a one-time donation drive is that it becomes a sustainable revenue stream that they can depend on, rather than a one-time injection of cash that dries up quickly.
LWN's subscription model seems to work really well. A subscription just means you get access to subscriber's only articles a week before everyone else; so if you don't need to stay absolutely on top of every development, you can read for free. There are different levels of subscriptions, ranging from $3.50/month to $50/month, so it's close to a "pay what you want" model (there are some slight differences in features you get at the different levels, but they are mostly equivalent). And subscribers are allowed to generate links that they can share with other people to content that is still subscriber-only, so you can still discuss an article if you feel like, submit it to HN, or the like; they just ask that people don't abuse it by providing a feed of all subscriber-only articles or something of the sort.