The author mentions a site they are paying for that still exhibits this behaviour:

> Here’s one from The Philadelphia Inquirer, for which I pay $20/month to subscribe, asking me to sign up for SMS text messages about the Jersey shore, while I’m logged into their cursed website, before they’ll let me see the article I came to read.

I would consider $20/mo "paying [...] to a sufficient degree that the ecosystem can work without the dickover".