People will pay. They care about hassle more than money. I absolutely detest the process of creating an account at a site to see content, and I use bugmenot all the time for free sites. However, I pay a decent chunk of change for a subscription to ft.com. When I find content I like, I want to subsidize the creation of more by the same creator. Micropayments and subscription models are the way of the future. Newspaper sites should support both models and let readers use either.