I've always felt one of the main reasons for this is that we never really got true microtransactions on the web. Pretty much all payment processors charge at least $0.20-30 per transaction.
My theory is that if there was a way to frictionlessly pay, say, $0.02 to access a piece of content ad-free, most people would be pretty okay with it. They key part is making the transaction frictionless - no more than 1-click/1000ms.
My theory is that if there was a way to frictionlessly pay, say, $0.02 to access a piece of content ad-free, most people would be pretty okay with it. They key part is making the transaction frictionless - no more than 1-click/1000ms.