There is a pot of gold waiting for someone who can make the idea of microtransactions palatable and transparent to the web surfer. Because it has to come, one w

There is a pot of gold waiting for someone who can make the idea of microtransactions palatable and transparent to the web surfer. Because it has to come, one way or the other. In addition, all site expenditures are not equal. There are huge numbers of clickbait sites that basically spend almost nothing in content creation, and expenses are almost entirely incurred through hosting/bandwidth charges. On the other extreme are smaller sites with highly loyal reader bases who create highly useful content where the creation/research costs are substantial. It would be almost impossible for the first group to go down the nickel-and-dime/paywall route. So really, it's only when the site operators start asking for the hard coin does the real test of what the content is worth in the users' eyes start. (Some readers actually demand a site details all their expenses exhaustively before they agree to pay for content. This may or may not be possible, or comfortable for site owners to accept as a neccessary part of the business.)