My subscriptions don't really make sense. My wife and I subscribe to the papers mainly to give us something to read while we're having breakfast, which means I have time to get through about five articles max. I read the rest of the paper online, where I can quickly skim articles, archive the ones I want to save for the future and check out the most popular stories of the day. A hard-copy version of the paper is wasteful and it costs money, and yet I haven't weaned myself off it. 

I do enjoy a leisurely Sunday breakfast with the Times and an extra-large cup of coffee, but I could do without that too, if forced. You'll get no argument from me about how it's just not the same if you don't get newsprint on your hands when you're reading. How many times have I avoided turning the page of the paper just because it was too much trouble? Too many to count. 

By now newspaper publishers should have figured out that people like me are the exception, and even I think about cancelling my print subscription each week. 

Take one survey conducted by ComScore in 2008. Readers older than 65 were by far the most likely to read and subscribe to the print version of a newspaper. In contrast, young readers were pitifully likely to subscribe. But the survey found that readers and non-readers alike flocked to the Web sites of the papers with the most established brands, like the New York Times the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. 

If the hot topic of conversation in past months was about the massive layoffs that were felling newsroom reporters left and right, the current buzz is about how to fund newspapers before they disappear forever. The New York Times' media columnist David Carr proposed an iTunes-style system where readers would pay for newspaper articles. He wisely pointed out, however, that Apple mainly promoted iTunes as a way to get people to buy iPods. There isn't quite the same device for the newspaper, yet. 

Slate's Jack Shafer suggested Amazon's Kindle could function as an iPod for papers. Some argue it would make sense for newspapers to abandon the printed paper entirely and simply buy their readers a Kindle. The Times would save millions on printing costs in the first year alone, even after buying the $359 device for its hundreds of thousands of subscribers. 

This solution is questionable, at best. Reading either the printed or online version of the paper your eye can skip around, searching for the headline that catches your eye. On the Kindle, BlackBerry or iPhone, the lack of display space is a major strike against it. 

One argument old-schoolers make in defense of the printed paper is that there's no replicating its beautiful full-page display ads and six-column photos. My laptop computer screen, however, is more than an inch wider than the printed version of the paper. 

OK, OK, we know printed papers are going the way of the dinosaur anyway. Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine, advances his own twist on Carr's paying-for-content question with the suggestion that readers pay either a penny, and nickel or a dime for every story they read with something like an "E-ZPass digital wallet." Like other people before him, Isaacson invokes the names of the two gods in the pay-for-content arena: Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder and Kindle huckster). 

There's one critical difference between paying for music or e-books and purchasing individual newspaper articles: people actually want to keep their MP3s and the new Stephen King book they downloaded. 

Steve Outing at Editor and Publisher has found a novel solution to monetizing the journalism question, which makes paying for content as easy as possible. Kachingle, the technology Outing profiles, allows users to decide how much a month in total they want to contribute to the Web sites they frequent. When the user visits the Kachingle-enabled site, the service tracks that visit. At the end of the month, it simply divides the money contributed by site page views and distributes it. 

I don't really care that much about getting the hard copy of the papers I subscribe to, but I do like the idea of supporting the organizations I frequent. If I had the opportunity to donate to The New York Times, I would be tempted. (After all, I'm one of the suckers who signed up for TimesSelect when it launched.) There's no question I'm a hypocrite, too, because I listen to NPR every day and I've never given during a pledge drive. If there was an easy way to contribute, a la Kachingle, I would. 

Publishers curse young consumers who are used to getting content for free. But (a few) of these same people paid money to download Radiohead's free album "In Rainbows," and donated to Wikipedia in December after the founder made a public appeal. That fundraising drive successfully raised more than $6 million. 

Make paying for content easy, without signups or subscriptions, and make it cool, like iTunes and the Kindle, and then readers might be on board. Anything else is destined for failure.

Maybe newspapers really need to follow public radio's lead, and start running pledge drives. Web sites will flash blank every 10 minutes, as the editors ask "for your support." It might just be worth trying.