[selfhoster11]

I think the reason being these were more like "minipayments" or "centipayments", and not micropayments. When I used them, there was a real mental friction for deciding whether a particular article will be worth the $0.07-0.21 that it was priced at.

A far better model is either do actual micro payments, meaning sub-1 cent so you don't feel ripped off if an article was not what you were after, or to let you pay what you want after reading the article.

The economics of making this work is left as an exercise to the reader.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I think what I’d like is a service that’s about $14/mo with all you can read news. Then something like $7 of your subscription fee is divided across sources based on the amount you read them, tidal-style