Like @frostdragon , this model doesn't sound right to me, but something similar has always sounded right: pay per chunk. In the very largest scale version, you could pay per chapter of a book (I think crowdfunding would work with this really well), in the micro- version, you could just pay per paragraph of an article. If after the first one or two, you realize the content doesn't interest you, you've saved money. yalls.org did the simplest version of this: you get to read the first paragraph for free, and if you like it, you unlock all the rest in 1 payment.