Pay-per-Read

I sent the following letter to the Los Angeles Times (not published (see below)):

I hope one of Bezos's experiments with the Washington Post is with micro-payments and pay-per-read.

I am a news and non-fiction addict, a print media junkie. For many years now, that has included print on-screen.

I am a long-time subscriber to the Times and a few magazines. However, I am not interested in subscribing to the dozens of additional separate newspapers and magazines whose stories I occasionally read. But I would happily pay a few cents to read each such item.

Micro-payment schemes have been talked about for many years, but no one has put one together that covers a multitude of content providers. Here's hoping Bezos does it.

As has too often been the case, I sent this in too late. I read about Bezos's purchase of and his wish to experiment with the Post on the afternoon the story hit the Internet. I immediately thought about micro-payments. The story appeared in the next day's Times, of course, and the day after that, the Times printed letters about it. Only then did I realize I should have written one! Cursing my own needless delay, I then wrote and sent the letter, clearly too late for it to be seriously considered.

Subsequently, I have posted it in several places: here, on Google+ in a comment to David Brin's item, and in a comment on the story in KCRW's Left, Right & Center.