Imagine YouTube didn’t exist, but rather 100 different videos sites. When trying to watch a video, it plays the first 15 seconds, then throws up a paywall, asking for a monthly subscription. The quality of the video is unknown, the videos the site hosts aren’t ones you’d want to come back to every day, and since there are so many sites, paying for all of them isn’t feasible.
This is the state of online news today. Subscriptions really only make sense for regular readers. I’m not sure how one decides to become a regular reader of a site when there is a paywall preventing them from sampling the goods.
If I could use something like ApplePay, with no sign up, no providing an email, or any of that nonsense to pay 10-25¢ to read an article, with little to no friction, I think I’d be more likely to do that for the occasional article. Without a widespread system like that, the public isn’t left with many options other than work around. It has to be cheap enough, and easy enough, that the work around aren’t really worth it.