This article explains why, in the digital information ecosystem, payments made by digital platforms, such as Google, to publishers for the use of press publications are economically justified. A conceptual review of platform economics, digital advertising, and information economics is combined with a comparative analysis of institutional solutions. The study develops a framework comprising four mechanisms: (1) content complementarity with search and advertising, favouring revenue concentration on the intermediary side; (2) information advantage and opaque distribution rules, which hinder the market valuation of publishers’ contributions; (3) positive externalities and the risk of long-term underinvestment; and (4) asymmetry of bargaining power, which may lead to a surplus distribution that departs from the parties’ contributions. Each mechanism is confronted with frequent counterarguments by platforms against compensation instruments. The contribution lies in integrating arguments from platform economics, information economics, public goods theory, and bargaining models into a coherent analytical framework, and in organising the compensation debate in terms of economic mechanisms.