you're looking at the situation too narrowly. publishers & content creators also want esteem and influence, which they can bank to get paid later (perhaps through a related but separate effort, like product 'reviews').
the short-termist, transactional view of society (you are only a good as your last payment, no long-term relation) is not natural, not required and undermines many other adjacent social contracts
publishers should support a lively rss ecosystem (actually evolve next-gen tech based on its principles) and draw revenue on the basis of visibility (and as you say, esteem and influence) this provides
people have always been paying for content. we have normalized the exception and abberation that is the "pay-with-your-private-data" business model
yes, it’s a lowest common denominator view of society that collapses all the complexity into simple transactions. it’s a lifeless way of perceiving the world.
