A $1 entry subscription where you have to type your name and credit card and submit and wait and now you have a relationship to manage, is infinitely more expensive than a 10 cent, automatic, non-recurring, one-time, no cancelation needed, pseudonomous, microtransaction.
Which isn't private. Wallet ID 123 buys a 10c article from Leftist Newspaper A and one from Leftist Newspaper B. Leftist Newspaper A and B, being businesses, sell the information that Wallet ID 123 purchased an article to Data Broker A. Data Broker A correlates all purchases Wallet ID 123 has ever made and with a high degree of accuracy identifies who they are and their political affliation. Data Broker A sells this profile to anyone who asks for it, including far right governments who might be interested in throwing people out of helicopters based on their political affiliation. Unless you use Monero, this will happen, and Monero will obviously not be used.
Yes, 90% of people are careless and already give away this information right now. But you're suggesting closing the door on the rest who care to be able to protect themselves while still being able to use the internet, and cementing that nobody will ever have privacy for the rest of their lives, when we should be making an effort to make it harder to identify people, not easier.
In what way is it even an improvement??? When has anyone ever said "yeah, actually, I love microtransactions!" Why is the final death of the free internet a good thing? Do you believe that by paying microtransactions you'll be exempt from the ads and spying, rather than simply being doubledipped?
What free internet? You always pay with your time and also usually with lots of tracking and ads.
AI can easily strip any ads for fractions of a cent. AI bots can be tracked - Open Router (or equivalent) will probably don't mind. That is the point of the article - ad and tracker infested webpages will soon be struggling, and some other forms of monetization needs to come.
Right but it means I can go read a bunch of content right away vs microtransactions where literally every click becomes a case of me deciding if it's worth 10c. That is exhausting.
Also if they are handling payments at some point you're going to be forming that relationship or they are going to get shut down for money laundering very quickly.
This is exhausting only if you don't value your time (which is the biggest cost when reading the news). People will learn how to make such decisions quickly.
