We don't live in history anymore, we live in the present. Our relationship to information and journalism is not the same as it was in the past, for better and for worse.

In the past, a typical individual would have access to maybe a handful of news sources. You'd pay for the printing and delivery of a physical newspaper and that was going to be the extent of the journalism you were exposed to. I don't think it's realistic to think one should subscribe to every news source they're likely to encounter online. I'd also counter that radio journalism was one of the main sources of information in the 20th century and had no such paywalls.

That said, I'm most annoyed because no one is actually talking about Stract, just about how 404media decided to lock the article

You know how that could have been avoided? If the link actually contained any useful information about Stract instead of being a sign-up page :P