A lot of sites are now dismantling comments or allowing them (even to be read) only by subscription.
I guess free speech on the NET is now to be restricted; it is no longer a public square (unless you can afford your own servers)
The website for the leading NJ newspaper (the Star-Ledger’s nj.com) shut down comments early in 2020 in anticipation of ending any pro-Trump postings; now they are looking for subscribers and restricting select stories to subscribers. Nobody is going to pay for it.
A smaller outlet’s website (the Bergen Record’s northjersey.com) is subscriber only to read any stories, but simply entering a headline in your browser usually will bring up a free version of it somewhere. Again, nobody is going to pay for this; there is little worthwhile content, and these outlets have long been the very definition of bias and propaganda.