Books have a back cover for that reason: so you can read it before buying. Long-form articles could have a back cover summary too, or an enticing intro... and

Books have a back cover for that reason: so you can read it before buying. Long-form articles could have a back cover summary too, or an enticing intro... and some substack paid articles do that already: they let you read an intro and cut before going in the interesting details. But for short newspapers articles it becomes harder to do based on topic. If the summary has to give out 90% of the information to not be too vague, you may then feel robbed paying for it once you realize the remaining 10% wasn't that useful.