You’re looking for things like blendle.com. I don’t use this particular service because they don’t allow “+” in email addresses.
LOL that's the reason that I gave up trying to subscribe to the WSJ digital edition, even after as much Imliked heir Theranos investigation.
Quality content takes time and effort to produce, so it's very expensive. A serious long-form investigative piece could take several man-months, whereas a clickbaity opinion piece can be knocked out by an intern in a couple of hours.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem. If you don't pay, they can't afford to produce quality journalism. If they don't produce quality journalism, you won't pay.
Unfortunately, most articles are low quality. Clickbait journalism is like this - a lot of people produce things that people would be willing to pay to not read.
The quality articles are also extremely rare; most media sites are one hit wonders, creating only one or two quality things. So a subscription would not be helpful either.
I think a better way to monetize would be to write a book or something, collecting the best of the best, or digging deeper into an idea that went viral. Tim Ferriss and Cal Newport comes to mind.