I think that the point he'd like to make (a bit clumsily, IMHO) is that we should NOT rely on SUBSCRIPTIONS only. We need more micropayments for single-shot buys.

When I was younger (but then, I'm from Europe), me and my parents subscribed to almost nothing, EXCEPT what we really and totally bought every single time - that was one (1) comic book magazine that I was buying every single week.

Newspapers? Sometimes my parents would read it at the local bar, sometimes at a friend's, sometimes at work, sometimes we would buy it, I'd say 2-3 times a week. But then: WE COULD CHANGE the newspaper every time! And, we DID switch what we bought, cycling between 2-3 newspaper we liked, so we had a kind of 360-degree view on what was happening.

Subscriptions prevent that kind of behaviour.