I don't get why news sites don't have a "coin slot" where I can insert a few quarters if I like an article and get a pass to read that day's edition.

I've encountered exactly that feature multiple times and I've never used it because god knows I'm not creating an account to give a site 0.99 and read an article. Friction.

Maybe if someone did it as a layer on top of news sites (like Google/FB login)... Maybe ...

> god knows I'm not creating an account to give a site 0.99

Who says you have to create a new account on every site? A cookie set after the payment processor has completed is all you need.

That will create a ton of angry customers who had their cookies auto-deleted e.g. because of Incognito. Support costs will outweigh the few pennies earned.

Especially with a tech-ninded crowd, relying on the persistence of cookies is completely unworkable because of the large percentage of users with extensions that block or wipe cookies eagerly.

Sounds like a business opportunity for the Brave browser.

This article requires x BAT to access. Unlock? Y/N

That will lead to every news headline to be clickbaity to grab your coins

As opposed to ads and BAT, which are facilitated whether or not an article turns out to be click bait?

"Coins" would be a manual process. If something is clickbaity, then you don't have to insert a coin.

No subscription there, but the full article is available without a paywall.

Guessing there is some geo-thing or A/B test going on.

The entire site is paywalled, but they unlock some articles specifically for HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21839936