Yup, this is both the solution and the problem.

Apple News+ has tried this. If anyone could pull it off, it's Apple.

But the problem is, it's not comprehensive enough. The two major newspapers/magazines I read aren't on there, because they've got enough market power to require their own subscriptions. Meanwhile, this is similarly missing the long tail of a lot of links I follow that are paywalled.

And then of course there are the massive usability issues. If I see a link on HN to e.g. Forbes, and click it, I just get the paywall. Apple News+ doesn't work in the browser. I understand that sometimes it's possible to use Share... in the browser to send an article to Apple News+, but that seems to require knowing it's one of the included 300+ publications? Which nobody's going to memorize...