I think it could work but you need 2 things: niche content and an audience adding value.
I'm not interested in what the NY Times has to say about sports so why would I pay for it, I'm not even remotely interested in 99 % of all of their content.
I can't tell you how many times I don't even bother reading articles.
All I read is the comments on Hacker News.
Not reading the articles saves me time. Reading the comments doesn't save me time but at least I'm getting a lot of value out of it.
I looked at GigaOm Pro the other day. Some of the content looks interesting and might be worth paying for. Not all of it, but even so, none of those research reports have responses / comments. The audience isn't adding value. Maybe all the value is in the research reports but I just find that hard to believe.
I can't tell you how many times I don't even bother reading articles. All I read is the comments on Hacker News. Not reading the articles saves me time. Reading the comments doesn't save me time but at least I'm getting a lot of value out of it.
I looked at GigaOm Pro the other day. Some of the content looks interesting and might be worth paying for. Not all of it, but even so, none of those research reports have responses / comments. The audience isn't adding value. Maybe all the value is in the research reports but I just find that hard to believe.