The local paper is a serious, though different problem. I read a very touching article last week about the collapse of the local press in the UK, with old peopl

The local paper is a serious, though different problem. I read a very touching article last week about the collapse of the local press in the UK, with old people quoted as saying there was no newspaper left to publish their obituary in. Back to monetising serious journalism in the national (or even international this day) press - I have a different view of the problem, which is I want to pay money but the sites are not asking for it. Rather than subscribe to a single paper, what I want is to make a micro-payment for an article that I read that interested me. For example that long piece on Dubai that was posted here a few days ago, or the piece on newspaper ownnership posted today - both were from newspapers that I do not regularly read or visit. I read the articles, I enjoyed them, they were long serious pieces of work and I would have pressed in an instant a button that said "If you liked this story click here to donate $0.10" in order to reward the person who paid the journalist to write the story. In fact I am many, many times more likely to give 10 cents that to click (or even notice) an advertisement on the same page. The search engine and other type of aggregators (such as HN type sites) then become a clear boon to the primary content provider because they are not diluting page views or anything like that - they are just delivering a potential paying customer straight to something they are likely to pay for. Why is nobody asking me for my money?