>> And—like any other payments directly from readers—micropayments would be a multiplier for advertising, not an alternative.

WTF, no way

>> no drug like attention ... help develop the habit....

Mark Z. again ??

legit advertisers ?¿?

Are there any ?? taboola and their ilk unremovable apps ? anybody wants their heads blow up?

>>The survival of legit sites depends on how quickly marketers can level up to stuff

Bonkers. Legit sites depend on reaching financial independence on legit valuable content that people want to read.

It is true that I look to this from an EU perspective. I am biased

Time ago a colleague and I pitched YC for compsate.com, basically a wallet (real money, forget crypto) based system ( no subscriptions ) for news/content micropayments system. The idea was based on no adds, no tracking, read news like you buy a newspaper at the kiosk. Pay 2 orders of magnitude more for each article you read (than what ads provide per page), your choice. Replenish wallet at will.

Logging into a system (acquiring an ID token in the process), then browse freely to any news site and read any content, including pay-walled which would be paid out of your wallet. All near real time. Small amounts would drive down risk of fraud, that could be as well controlled by the selection of news stand that can join.

Pay for what you read, compensate for the value of what you read, make your news source independent (at least financially).

We fail the pitch but I believe it still is doable and preferable for the media if they would set up such a platform together. You know the commons....sometimes wins.