No matter how many times people collect information and research micropayments, trying to pop the bubble of faith around them as a cure for what ails the newspaper industry, they consistently maintain some level of support.
Newspapers have spent the past century with a monopoly on tools of mass publishing as well as the means of distribution, meaning that much of what has happened to them over the past decade is a result of them slowly losing both those important things. The reality is that even the ideal micropayment system isn't going to be able to recreate that system of artificial short supply and control. Some have argued that micropayments could even be bad for journalism as a whole, putting undue pressure on individual stories to be massive revenue generators.
What does all this really mean for journalism? It might lead to charging for different platforms, early alerts, and special “members-only” access to certain premium content. But there's one thing that's certain. It could never mean charging people "fractions of a cent" to enjoy a news story, regardless of how sophisticated the process is. Courtesy of neimanlab.org
