Back when everything on the internet was free, it was easy to write a column recommending websites for investors. Even if you wanted to recommend a few fee-based sites they always had a simple subscription structure that made it easy to explain what users were paying for.

Nowadays, it gets trickier. Media and research companies are desperate to turn online content into cash through subscriptions. This is fine. But any websites "ladder" the costs to access their site - a little bit for free, a basic subscription, a pricier premium subscription that offers exclusive content, a separate charge for newsletters, a super-premium subscription, and so on - that it makes investors wax nostalgic for cyberspace's simpler days.