If people were forced to pay for websites by the http request people would demand that websites stop loading a ton of externally hosted JS, stop filling sites with ads, and would demand that websites actually have content worth the price.

There are so many links I click on these days that are such trash I'd be demanding refunds constantly.

>There are so many links I click on these days that are such trash

That is why AI "summarization" becomes a necessary intermediate layer. You'd not see nor trash nor ads, and thus the payment instead of being exposed to the ads. AI saves the Internet :)

It's not a development problem, it's an adoption problem. Publishers are desperate to sell us on a $20+/month subscription, they don't want to offer convenient affordable access to single articles.

$20/month would be nice if it wasn't a tier with less ads. I want no ads, and full-text rss feeds (because I want to use my clients to read). It's like how Netflix refuses to build a basic search and filter, or Spotify refuses to an actual library manager. They don't want you in control of your consumption.