I totally won't mind paying for the occasional article I open, if micropayments were a thing! Pay a quarter, read something worthy.

The problem is that micropayments are not interesting for most news outlets: the friction of current solutions is high, the resulting revenue stream, unsteady. Monthly / yearly subscriptions bring a better revenue stream, and cost way less.

If micropayments were indeed zero-friction, and effectively zero-cost, maybe they'd be (reluctantly) integrated.