> Realistically, however, it will be too much hassle for readers to shell out money every time, and too much hassle for publishers to manage all those micropaym

> Realistically, however, it will be too much hassle for readers to shell out money every time, and too much hassle for publishers to manage all those micropayments. So there might be a valid business model for a middleman True, but there is still the feeling that you might be going through the pain of signing up and putting a chunk of money down upfront for something that you might not find useful. Of course that fear goes away if it takes off and gains a good reputation. I think I would would be more inclined to try a service (aggregate or otherwise) that rewards the pain of sign up with a certain amount of free content per month. Then require payment beyond that. Another approach would be free access to older content. No one pays for old newspapers, but you can judge the quality of the content.