[sanswork]

It's a clue of what its about but it's not the same as a recommendation that its going to contain something you enjoy.

So every click is a decision on an unknown and that's where the problem comes in. You read the headline now you have a decision to make, is it worth spending money to continue. For longer form media your return on good stuff is going to be at least an hour of entertainment. For news you will almost certainly be done the article in 30 seconds on less. So you decide to click, you read the article, it's good, it's now 30 seconds later and you read the next headline and you have another decision to make, do I pay for this? Thats where the decision fatigue comes in and why it's so quick with this model. Even if it's just a penny you're not thinking well clicking this will only cost a penny, you're thinking do I really want to pay to see what the other side says?

And if you're at the point where you're spending a lot of time on a single source even if it costs more it generally makes more sense just to subscribe since then you are making a single decision once a month.