A $0.99 song from itunes isn't a micropayment. It's a dollar paid for a music track you are likely to listen to over and over. Additionally, you knew what you were buying because you heard the music for free on the radio or in a club.
Journalistic work doesn't fit the iTunes model. News and blog posts tend to be fire and forget. Nobody will pay $1 up front, and once they've consumed the content once, they no longer need to pay for it.
When texting started, it was free until the phone companies figured out that my wife and spent more time texting for free than we did talking for money. When I'd be on the road, we texted until our thumbs had callouses. Imagine our disappointment when Verizon (and everyone else) started charging for it. (Caveats: U. S. on Verizon using pay-as-you-go phones, and at least 12 years ago.)
In my opinion iTunes is an outlier due to several factors: 1. The tie-in with the hardware (Apple iPod), 2. High-profile discussion about piracy and "punishment" avenues that were being discussed prominently, and 3. Steve Jobs working in the background to capitalize on 1 & 2 for very favorable terms with record labels enabling the price point (which was again maneuvered by Tim Cook with iTunes Music getting good deals for the new service).
You couldn't just buy one track before. Now you can for $.99. You couldn't send a text message at all before.
Try $.10 per email and see what traction that gets.
The market, like all markets, is defined by people's willingness to pay and their next best alternative. Make the transaction cheap and nearly frictionless and it might be the choice with the highest utility.
So... pretty much every web paywall I've ever encountered. Where's my amazon 1-click for news website paywalls? Several of which I encounter using this very site?
I don't want to create an account, subscribe, save my details, unsubscribe from services I no longer use, etc. for each individual website.
You don't want to be deciding whether to pay on every little pageview.
When texting started it was almost universally $.25 or $.10 or so per text. One would definitely be aware of that fact when communicating with friends but you get over it because it's useful.
Wait I have another example, $0.99 songs via iTunes. That was the model that created the largest music retailer in the world from whole cloth.
It's not that complicated, all it would take is for someone (gee I wonder who) to standardize the price (or price tiers) and have a quick modal OK to continue on to the article for one credit, or equivalent.