Why do you think newspapers/magazines don’t allow people to pay per article (obviously at a steep markup to subscription)? Do you think it’s because they’re afraid of cannibalizing their revenue?

My personal theory is that it's a cross of two or three things:

1. They don't want to know or admit the articles that are "worth paying for"

2. They know that hardly anyone would pay

3. Advertisers only care about subscription numbers

It seems such a perfect use of Apple Pay online - click a button, pay $1-2, the newspaper gets $0.50-$1 or so (way more than an ad impression) and they get the chance to convince someone to subscribe.

This is exactly what the 402 HTTP code is for. Such a shame.