I don't think he was suggesting that paywalled articles should never be read, but rather that they're ill-suited to content aggregators like HN, where you're likely to visit 10 domains for every 10 links you click. Particularly because the vast majority of paywalls are subscription-based, not pay-per-content, paywalls and content aggregators aren't very compatible.
Wapo has a huge social media team that tries to get free traffic from sites like us.
The paywall is a clumsy and ham-fisted attempt to monetize that traffic. It is unfriendly to the community and provides no value to many non subscribers.
I have no issue with ads or polite monetization (I am a publisher myself)... but paywall sites really don't belong on content aggregators.
If I posted a teaser article with thin content for a $199 report on HN, I would likely be banned as spam. Paywalled articles are very similar to this in principle.
