I agree with you in that we need to support the journalists doing the reporting. That's expensive, the companies that do it are mostly in dire financial straits, and most journalists themselves make very little money.

That said, micropayments have been tried over and over again, and fail. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/micropayment...

A universal subscription is incredibly difficult to set up logistically, especially wondering how you split up payments, who qualifies to be included, etc. Is it by traffic? That would incentivize clickbait even more.

I've written about my plan/thoughts here: https://blog.forth.news/a-business-model-for-21st-century-ne...