Former Google Contributor user reporting in! I absolutely do not want normal journalism going out of business, but I’m not going to subscribe to Bloomberg or FT or any of those sites on a recurring basis for one article. I love the idea of paying a non-subscription for one thing, occasionally, though!
But I'm interested in maybe 3 articles a month. If I were to pay for them it's like paying for Netflix and watching a movie a month. Or subscribing to a dead-tree newspaper and only reading the comics.
I do get that micropayments are hard, but it's not a technical issue - it never has been. It's all about credit card costs and legalese.
They do! And I did test a subscription to Bloomberg, and subscriptions to various other sites, but I have never found it compelling enough to visit for the price on a regular basis. I get my news from a large variety of sources. I have never found it valuable to only subscribe to one source, and I simply do not have the capital to justify subscribing to all of the places that sometimes publish good articles.