If $10 is too expensive, then that article was not important anyway.

This also makes no sense, $10 is not some magic importance threshold

For it to make sense to you, imagine somebody buying a pizza:

- How much is the pizza?

- It's 10 dollars.

- I don't think it's worth 10 dollars!

- Uhm, okay then don't buy it.

- But I really need that pizza, it's really important that I get it!

- Then pay 10 dollars?

- That's too expensive, it's worth nowhere near that!

- If it's not worth 10 dollars why is it important to you?

- It's extremely important that I get that pizza and I really want it, but also you have to understand that it's not worth 10 dollars, so give it to me for free now!

...ad infinitum.

If it still doesn't make sense, then it will never make sense.

It will never make sense because it's nonsense: you can eat dozens of pizzas for $10, so it makes no sense to say that if you don't want to pay $10 for just a single pizza means you don't value pizza (and no one was talking about "give it to me for free now")

I think that if you can eat dozens of pizzas for $10, then you could probably write dozens of articles for the same price. So then buying an article from some magazine shouldn't be of any interest.