> It's not that your article isn't worth a nickel, it's that it's not worth my mental energy to debate whether to spend a nickel.

I agree with the above, but disagree that this makes micropayments for online content a futile venture. There are a couple ways that come to mind to solve the mental fatigue issue:

1. Automate all the payments

2. Automate all the payments w/ a cap

3. Automate payments from whitelisted domains

4. Don't automate payments, but ask to whitelist new domains (similar to: "remember me").

These could all just be user preferences, just as described in the post.