I said I have no problem with a tax for content aggregators. If they provide a summary of the content so that users don't have to visit your site. That's fair.

But wanting to be paid also for just a hyperlink? That's idiotic. That is a service they are receiving (for free). Why do I say that? Because when social media stop linking to content at all, the media producers start complaining about reduced traffic. So the links clearly provide value to the media companies.

So they simply took it too far. "we want to be paid for the service we provide" (the content itself) is fair. "We want to be paid for a service we actively want and are receiving for free" (the hyperlinking to their site on social media) is not.