It's precisely because the WSJ has a paywall (since 2007 IIRC) that it's not a "garbage site". That dubious honour would go to the hordes of medium.com and elektrek.co links who give their information away because, well, exposure is better than nothing. You get what you pay for.
It's still annoying. I subscribe to the NYT and WaPo. I can't even logistically subscribe to every news site I might get linked to. WSJ is the most obtrusive I've seen in terms of being restrictive towards non-subscribers. And there's STILL no micropayments solution that's widely adopted.