[doublebind]

> I don't see how this is different from disputing the banking sector by conducting a heist.

Let's leave aside this logical fallacy; we're all adults here.

Buying music on iTunes became popular because it was easier than pirating the music. You could buy individual songs for less than 99 cents (you still can do that [1])

News outlets have the option of selling content by the piece (as you suggest) instead of forcing you to go into a monthly or annual subscription you don't need because you just want to read 1 or 2 articles per month from a particular newspaper.

However, they don't want to do so. And because of that, pirating the content becomes again more convenient; like in the pre-iTunes years.

Your idea of using an intermediary service to get that content isn't the solution. I'm not interested in a third party profiling me based on the content I read online.

Edited to add reference: [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/109338

[holistio]

There's no profiling going on, we take a cut of the sale price and that is it. But I understand your concern and will think hard about how we could make this more obvious. I'm not sure if it's a general concern or it applies more to people like us.

Also, I assume you read stuff on Substack, Medium, Reddit, etc. Definitely so on a third party commonly known as HN.

Re iTunes: it's not about the will of the news outlets. It is impractical for them to offer a model which sells by the piece. And the most prominent cause is banal: payment fees are too high a percentage on what would be a typical price for a single piece of content.

Keeping a credit balance solves that, but keeping a credit balance at every outlet is just as bad as monthly subs.

An aggregator can solve this issue.