We already have micro-payments, and it's called ads.

It is pretty transparent to the user, there is no per-transaction fixed cost (though the margin taken by Ad provider is pretty huge), and some people are living pretty nicely with it.

I agree with the various points this article makes, but it doesn't mean micro-payments are a no go. Just make it as seamless as ads!

The article mentions subscription, but doesn't mention the possibility of subscription-based micro-payments?

That's what scroll.com, and I believe there solution has none of the issues mentioned in this article, even though it would still make sense as a 402 Payment Required! Of course you can't generalize scroll.com everywhere, for many reasons. But I believe /that/ idea is a start of making micro-payments a thing.