I think the solution from a consumer perspective is per article 1-click micro-transactions.
It needs to be easy, seamless and not require a new account for each site.
"Click to pay 10¢ with NewsBuyer to read this article". Boom done.
It needs to be easy, seamless and not require a new account for each site.
"Click to pay 10¢ with NewsBuyer to read this article". Boom done.
This effectively prevents immediate charging, so you end up needing to provide one of two services: either a tab-based model where you effectively loan your consumer content and trust that they will pay you, or a top-up model where they have to pay into an account in advance and they can eat away at that balance slowly.
The tab-based model obviously fails because you can't stop people from registering new accounts over and over and never paying you.
The top-up balance model is the most likely scenario to work, but will require people paying a "large" amount of like $10 per transaction. Skype uses this model.
So then you have your problem with the "new account for each site". Well, I guess there's some sort of linking you could do, where a payment provider company like Square would enter into an agreement with each content provider to take 10% per transaction or something. Then you would just use single-sign on from your payment provider to login to these content provider sites.
Valve has basically done this for video games, except it's centralised.
So this takes the "login with Facebook" idea to "purchase with [X]".
NYC locals don't shop the tourist shops, because they've learned not to.
Of course if the cost is low enough and you realize your money has been wasted, you simply never purchase from that author again, and if enough other users follow suit, they'll go out if business.
And since then we've had Patreon come into vogue, which almost all of the YouTube channels I encounter are using now. It gives support to "pay for content you enjoy". Only problem I see with it is that you have to leave the consumption platform to make the transaction happen.
Then there is the issue of the likes of tech-crunch who are abusing the GDPR rules and making you individually toggle ~250 check boxes to opt out of all the things that their global "off" button doesn't uncheck, those sites I choose to leave immediately and not visit again.
Perhaps you could pay after a certain amount of time? But then there are many ways around paying for that. Perhaps they could reveal the article to you line-by-line and you have a time-restriction there?
Or do we just suck it up, and pay for things regardless? My principles don't allow me to pay even a penny for something that is blatant and utter rubbish designed with no purpose other than to make / noise.
If enough people stop paying that author, they go out of business.
It shifts the onus to the content producer to make content people want to pay for, and not making the consumer decided between subscribing to a platform which is 50/50 good/bad.
I see it would certainly make sites like this more useful, those that curate content based on public opinion.