Not to be that “just add blockchain” guy, but this would be a great usecase for permissionless cryptocurrency micropayments, e.x. Lightning Network. Create an open protocol, build it into browsers, let content sites ask you to pay $0.01 (or whatever) to view an article. Maybe you could set your browser to automatically pay for the first N articles or M dollars per site per day. Or maybe a site could offer an unlimited subscription option through the same system.