In any discussion about adblockers the consensus among HN readers seems to be "I'd pay if I had the option" - yet the first thing to appear on any paywalled story is a link to Outline.
It only takes one person to post the comment and a few more to upvote it. Furthermore, particularly in the case of the WSJ, there is no low cost option for reading individual stories. You either become a subscriber at the monthly rate, or you don't read anything.
I don't think they ever intend to actually pay as much as they feel they do. Faced with the option to do so, they never do.
"I would do X" has a massive list of caveats, most of which are non-intersecting with anyone elses. Don't try to run a business based on this. Flattr and Blendle tried this and are having a hard time.
It's just "don't believe people will buy your product till you have the money".
Maybe something like https://www.w3.org/Payments/WG/
I pay circa $500/year for traditional journalism, plus maybe another $1000/year on Patreon for specific writers, plus assorted donations. So I'm not averse to paying.
However, there are a few cases where I'm happy to skate around a paywall. A relevant one here is that I just don't read the WSJ often enough to justify a full subscription. With other places, like say HBR, I'd fall in their "N free articles per month" bucket. I expect the WSJ will eventually come around to that approach. Until then, me reading it via Outline or whatever isn't costing the WSJ any money, either directly or in would-have-subscribed-if-I-had-to revenue, so I don't feel bad about it.