A friend told you about an article, or a headline piqued your interest.

You could anonymously hand a negligible payment (few cents or dollars in cash) to an intermediary (the newspaper seller at the street corner) to get access to all the content published for a certain time period (daily/weekly/monthly issue of the publication).

Now a "friend" (for example a HN post) still tells you about an article. Unfortunately you can't get an issue, they want an ongoing commitment. It's not anonymous, you have to create an account. The intermediaries are gone though, is that a good thing?