[gxon]

I would argue the opposite.

If I submit a micropayment for an article that turns out to be low effort clickbait, my disappointment will be magnified by the fact that I lost money. I would also expect my satisfaction to be magnified for high quality content. Consequently, my trust in a brand will decrement or increment accordingly. A micropayment service could even track my reactions and maintain a personalized reputation score for a publisher/brand.

Obviously, this happens now, but I don't personally have as visceral as a reaction to losing the few seconds of time as I would to losing money. Putting even a small amount of money on the line clarifies the cost of the transaction.

Long term subscriptions, on the other hand, give the publisher more wiggle room to produce lazy, low effort content. Loss of brand image needs to build up to a critical threshold that motivates me to cancel the subscription.