Your examples don't strike me as low-quality or spam articles. Maybe if they were in Nature or Science or IEEE Spectrum. I think you should have a wider perspective, plenty of lifestyle sites I go on have poorer-quality articles that I choose to read, and I can certainly see paid relationships which are pretty transparent when I do so (as can most readers). I actually pay money to buy these magazines, and read articles like this (on many different subjects), so it is fair to say that I would pay to read content like this. I found them interesting.

I wouldn't have paid to read your comment though, probably because I don't care about SEO. (Not a reflection on your comment.)