> My guess is that a browser based micropayment solution/ecosystem will emerge
I think so too, I think it's just a question of outlets realizing that the lost profits from cannibalizing their subscription sales does not compare to the income from allowing consumers to buy pieces of your publication.
It was tried in the past. There were attempts to get newspapers to unite behind single group subscription schemes. The newspapers themselves rejected it. Problem is if a third party collects your income for you, you're not really independent anymore. Also, they don't want to receive pennies because someone read a single article they wrote, they want long term subscribers. Finally it requires them to all adopt paywalls which they didn't want to do back then (maybe these days it'd be different).
I wish I could remember the name of the scheme I'm thinking of.
I think this is spot-on. My guess is that a browser based micropayment solution/ecosystem will emerge (a la Brave and its Basic Attention Token).