I didn't understand why news can't run on postpaid pay-per-use model, which I think you are implicitly referring. Note that pay-per-use isn't necessarily implying micro-transactions; we pay utility bills just once a month, and cloud is either postpaid pay-for-use or prepaid credits that are deducted based on usage.
And nearly the entirety of retail sales. When I buy something at a store, I don't have to have an account, subscription, or anything of the sort. I can just grab the thing I want, fork over the price of that thing, and get on with my day.
Aside from logistics, the problem with microtransactions for news that I can see is that it would encourage only the more sensationalistic news and discourage the more mundane news that is likely more important for people to know.
Not really? Retail is mostly driven by normal transactions.
> Aside from logistics, the problem with micro-transactions for news that I can see is that it would encourage only the more sensationalistic news and discourage the more mundane news that is likely more important for people to know.
Exactly - it essentially kills journalism that requires a lot of upfront research or work.
Why? why do most B2B companies prefer subscription based pricing? Because it brings in predictability you can run a business on. Micro-transactions only work in utility context (electric, water, cloud compute). You can't run a news company on micro-transactions.