Most people don't want to pay for anything. Look at all of the workarounds for news sites. I try to pay or donate for most of what I use but there seem to be a lot of people who want to get everything for free.
I totally won't mind paying for the occasional article I open, if micropayments were a thing! Pay a quarter, read something worthy.
The problem is that micropayments are not interesting for most news outlets: the friction of current solutions is high, the resulting revenue stream, unsteady. Monthly / yearly subscriptions bring a better revenue stream, and cost way less.
If micropayments were indeed zero-friction, and effectively zero-cost, maybe they'd be (reluctantly) integrated.
My experience w/ most news outlets is that they have a random article I'm linked to. That's not worth a subscription in my mind. A news service you have an ongoing relationship with is.