The more money that comes from subscriptions, the more that news coverage will reflect the interests of subscribers rather than advertisers.
My father reads a lot of third party news but actually fact checks on Reuters. A lot of friends and colleagues skip third party news and read directly from Reuters, because it is free. With this change, I doubt a great many of them will continue with Reuters as a source, and would rather stop at a third-party localized news outlet.
Reuters provides facts, and very little opinion. People believe that facts ought to be free, and only worthy opinions are worth paying for.