Google wants you to be happy with your search, and doesn't care at all about journalists. If they thought people would prefer paywalled content gone they could do that anytime.
I agree the option would be nice, but I think you are wrong that everyone wants paywalled articles excluded
> If they thought people would prefer paywalled content gone they could do that anytime.
Which is what they do by penalizing sites for showing something different to Googlebot than the user.
> I agree the option would be nice, but I think you are wrong that everyone wants paywalled articles excluded
What they want is for non-paywalled links that include the relevant information to be listed first, which is de facto equivalent to excluding paywalled links (because they'll be on page 75) in the vast majority of search results.
I agree the option would be nice, but I think you are wrong that everyone wants paywalled articles excluded