> Get paid enough by who and for what reason?

By their customers, for doing the same thing they'd been doing for much of their working lives up to this point.

> Do they realize that the money has to come from someone who decides to pay it out of their own free will?

You'd have the answer if you'd continued for just four more words (or five if you count the "they're" as two) past where you cut off the quotation:

  they're forced by economics

You think customers are so cheap they will refuse to pay the few cents per article for a proper online listing but somehow will be willing to pay tens of dollars for the mystery article itself?