I also don't have any proof that the article will be any good. When buying a whole newspaper for the day, if some of the articles are suboptimal, I can still make money from the reliably good stuff. But if I go look at an article, am I getting something good, or is it regurgitated Reuters I read before, plain AI, or completely wrong? The barrier is too high if I don't have a lot of faith in the source, and if I do, I should just subscribe

Sure, but if a source routinely clickbaits you/has a worse than expected article, you learn to avoid it (or even add a "don't show me this source" rule).

As long as the sources last long enough for reputation to build naturally (so, not the Amazon LLC model), it should all come out in the wash pretty reasonably.

But if you're only paying a penny the risk is tolerable.

I've spoken to a german news outlet a while back, and that was my contention too: I don't know if the article will be any good.

My suggestion was as follows:

Start the article by providing the dry facts - the meat of the article - in a super condensed format, so people get it as quickly as possible. Then, ask for money to get the rest - the analysis, the "whodunit", the "how we got there", the background, the bio's, and everything else. And then tell people: "If this interests you, you can pay $0.xx to read the rest of our article about it, including: (insert bullet points I just mentioned)"

The first section acts as proof that the person writing the article did their research; the rest is for those who are genuinely interested in the topic. It prevents disappointment and tells you clearly and transparently what you're getting for you cents.

I don't think the company did it in the end. They're struggling.