Journalism is going to get smaller before it gets bigger again.

Start with the obvious: Jeff Bezos ought to support the WaPo or sell it to someone who will. Putting it into hospice and calling it “reinvention” is a farce. It is doubly tragic because the Post and its kind are supposed to be the obvious survivors in the ongoing digital disruption: large metro newsrooms that can benefit from local subscriptions, advertising scale, and national or international reach and reputation.

This brand of self-inflicted wound (Bezos-inflicted?) informs the intuition that journalism probably ought not to be controlled by amoral billionaires. And it suggests that one option—at the far other end of the spectrum—is to find a path to sustainability for independent journalists. That is 100% a good thought which makes me want to do the math.

Journalism is what? A practice, a craft, a profession, an industry? Sure, all that and also unregulated, uncredentialed, and, if done correctly, a bit subversive.

But “doing the job right” often means being in conflict with people who are rich, famous, powerful, and/or backed by large public and private institutions. To that fight, The Washington Post (and many others) have historically brought not just “the truth” but also social and economic capital. It takes deep pockets, a lot of friends, and a steady sense of mission to fight with a corporate CEO, or the mayor, governor, or president.

Independent journalists have, can and will continue to do great work. But they are also constrained by the power dynamics of punching too far above their weight. Even a newsroom Gawker’s size and notoriety was bankrupted by a billionaire with a grudge.

Adding heft and reducing existential risk can be achieved by collaborations and partnerships: small and large publishers working together on projects, or a network of independents sharing back-office operations, including a media lawyer. We see that constellation of partnering, sharing, and merging already taking place.

And what happens as soon as collaborators start pooling funds to protect against a shared risk? They are going to want to get aligned on a few editorial standards, maybe a shared copyeditor, or some other editorial review process—not as a means of control but of mutually assured economic survival.

At that point, sharing other front- and back-office functions is just sensible: fundraising, ad sales, marketing, maybe HR if revenues increase enough to have staff. Next thing you know, there is a group of five news organizations (née independent journalists) operating as one (not entirely traditional) newsroom.

The decomposition of legacy newsrooms into smaller but functional bits, and the aggregation of small and independent journalism in new but recognizable forms, is inevitable. And the question is which will happen first—and how will our communities fare in the interim?