This is certainly a problem, but I think examples like video game microtransactions and HQ Trivia payouts prove it's not unsolvable. $1 transactions at a 30% cu

This is certainly a problem, but I think examples like video game microtransactions and HQ Trivia payouts prove it's not unsolvable. $1 transactions at a 30% cut sound harsh, but are clearly capable of supporting companies. Or, if a trusted intermediary is available, micropayments can be batched into a few larger charges. This is definitely harder if you're going to leave money with consumers, who can cancel before a batched payment with little downside. But it could probably be managed, or people could be persuaded to pay a larger sum into a clearinghouse in advance. The easiest approach might be to partner such a service with an existing alternate payment processor. Lots of people are already content to leave a few lunches worth of money in Venmo, which would both reduce payment fees and streamline the mental effort of buying articles. And cynically, an auto-refill setup would also reduce people's awareness of how much they were paying. There are still major hurdles for this model - do you serve content and then hope you get paid? Do you offer refunds on articles people dislike? But I think the actual transactions can be managed, and I think the clearinghouse model could potentially resolve a lot of the other issues besides. As a quick example: 'refunds' for bad articles become vastly easier when haven't paid a transaction fee and can blacklist people who abuse the mechanic.