Honestly, I just want a subscription model like Netflix or Google Music: A nominal monthly fee for ad-free access to most content on most major websites.
I suspect a news aggregator that provided access to "most content on most major websites" would rapidly hit the same wall; just licensing content from the five biggest U.S. newspapers would require a higher subscription rate than most people would be willing to pay.
Honestly, I think it would work best when combined with a site like Hacker News.
Imagine if Hacker News had a $10 / month plan that guaranteed that I could read 99% of content on the front page.
Otherwise, I'm just not subscribing to 20 different sites so I can skim 4-5 articles a month.
Problems like creating an online tipping protocol could be addressed with work on new web standards, not private partnerships with for-profit companies spearheaded by a single browser developer. If something like this could work, it needs to be an open standard. I appreciate Mozilla's work on this important issue, but don't think they are even starting with the right approach.
It wouldn't, and this whole subthread of tipping is way off from what this article and service provider is even on about. So since we aren't actually talking about micropayment tipping, lets continue:
Having the ISP handle both the subscription and payment would be reducing and bundling a pooled monthly subscription away from consumers.