I may sound cheap, but let me say: if every website starts charging small amounts for each page I visit, I will stop using the internet.

Arguments like "everybody pays hundreds of dollars per month for TV, movies, newpapers, etc." don't work. I don't, so it's not "everybody", and I'm sure there are plenty of people like me. I have no TV. I would sometimes like to watch TV, but there is no way that I would pay $50 per month to the cable company for it. I get a newspaper every once in a while. I subscribe to one magazine. And I have pretty cheap DSL. I buy books sometimes.

I might pay something like $5 per month for a few sites that I visit a lot, (mostly OSNews and Ars Technica), but don't ever expect me to pay even one cent to read a blog post. I certainly would never pay more than $25 per month for the content that I read on the internet.

Also, a lot of people use the internet to find information, not to have it passively fed to them like on a news site. If I look up something, and I see that one of the search results in Google wants me to pay to read it, I ignore it.

The problem is, there is great demand for cheap information. If information becomes more expensive, people will consume less information. It's that simple.

Sorry, But I don't see anything new from previous post... micro-payments as an partial answer is not anything new, the problem is, in the current "system", it is not happening yet. why? because banks, payment systems and other middlemen don't want to work for fractions of cents... Not only that, but there's something called laws, and every country (and sometimes states) has laws about taxes and regulatory stuff about "selling stuff", and they don't work very well with this micro-thing yet.. actually, they don't work well with the internet yet...

I may sound cheap, but let me say: if every website starts charging small amounts for each page I visit, I will stop using the internet.

While there is a law about breaking news and sources...

I expect that sites will in the future charge for content via deals with ISPs, possibly through a PalPal-style 3rd party. ISPs might include in their offering some amount of paid content, depending on which product customer buys, then each time he visits a pay site, some amount of money gets subtracted from his account. This way it would be very simple for customers and it would actually be quite similar to how people pay e.g. for phones.

But unlike phones, by browsing one single site you could be actually accessing several different pay sites at the same time through iframes or whatever.

And you can bet the very moment they can get your money on a per visit basis they will do exactly that kind of stuff.

That would be awesome, a good malicious hacker can clear those accounts on multiple ways every month.. More money for mal-ware and infiltration ware!
*end sarcasm*

As for the claim that information wants to be free, I cannot imagine a dumber or more overused saying from the last couple decades. First, saying information wants to be free is as inane as saying oranges want to be free.

But I would like to see rebuttal articles, especially by educated technical writers, be a bit more civilized. Demeaning with words such as "silliness" and "dumber" leave a bad taste.

It is one thing to talk about micropayments for a site with a full staff of editors, video producers, etc, etc. It is however preposterous to think people will (micro)pay just to see a blog where some guy might or might not just be talking out of his ass, you won't know until you've paid up.