[dredmorbius]

And this is the key reason why micropayment schemes don't work.

If they were effectively priced, the decision cost of trying to figure out if an item was worth purchasing or not would exceed the value of virtually all content.

It's why bundled subscriptions became popular, at a time when these were tied to a service (delivery by the publisher) and a set of enabling technologies (low-cost printing, paper, and ink). Even if a given article within the magazine, or a given issue in the year, left you wanting, the gross price was about right. And the result was achieved: people could share and commonly discuss ideas.

With Web-based publishing, the tollgate which postal delivery afforded is gone, and an alternative business model is wanted. And the result is that we're not discussing the content of the article (pretty light, BTW, from Google cache), but of the publishing model itself.

Twist: Though that topic is HN-worthy in its own right.