The issue is what mechanism could be used to force Google to pay, but also prevents Google from saying “yeah, we just won’t provide any links to those sites at all”.

Are they going to force Google to index those sites against their will? If so, how? Even if they could, would you really want that? Will it be just as cool for Russia to force Google to index whatever it wants, too? Are they just going to take money from Google no matter what, and give it to the news sites, even if Google isn’t indexing them?

Sorry for the delayed response. I didn’t see a notification.

Google is pointing out that the news sites need google more than google needs the news sites.

This sort of thing happens every once in a while; some country’s news organizations think that google should have to pay them for the privilege of helping people find their sites. Google responds by blacklisting news sites from that country. The news sites suffer more than google does, and they reverse the decision.

The best we can hope for, under the circumstances, is that Roberts comes to deeply regret that decision, as Trump turns on him.