I mean if it's me I'm trying to read a single wsj or FT article, and there's no way to do that, so I'm unsubscribing asap as a signal to the publication to be less shitty

not entirely their fault -- the entire electronic payments system has evolved to make non in person micropayments difficult

also possible pubs aren't confident enough in the value prop of individual articles to price them

I hate virtual economies + in-game currencies but for newspapers specifically, as an alternative to subscription-gating, it might be an improvement

anonymity is also a consideration; KYC fine, but the payment processor can know who I am without telling the content vendor