The extra smart thing here being, of course being twofold: First of all, they provide you this service for a myriad of outlets. (Thus limiting the actual transactions (such a hassle!) with your bank even more. And second: they provide a service for newspapers to publicise their print content online.
As far as I'm concerned, the core thing they made is a way of transferring all these 'print' articles to online. A benefit for publishers. This is now slowly shifting towards the 'one stop paywall' core business. One probably couldn't start without the other, but in the end we'll have a completely new thing. (Which I've described in several rants in Dutch.. yadieyada... stuff.)
I tend to pay more for articles these these, although for full disclosure I'd have to say that I work for a media outlet. (And yes' we're in Blendle, and we're not even print! ;) )