I think a variant of the street performer protocol (later reinvented as "crowdfunding", minus the idea that once something is funded, it should be available to

I think a variant of the street performer protocol (later reinvented as "crowdfunding", minus the idea that once something is funded, it should be available to everyone) is the way to go. A newspaper could put up a widget saying "these are our monthly expenses, and here is how much in tips we have collected so far this month". People interested in keeping the paper going would tip. Or, well, maybe not, tragedy of the commons and everything. The important difference to "pay per view" being that you have less of the "this is going to cost me one" problem. You can see what the paper offers and then pay what you think is appropriate. It does seem to work for Wikipedia.