You could buy a physical copy (and this isn't meant to sound sarcastic).

You can walk down to a bookstore or anywhere that sells magazines and buy a physical copy

I’ve often thought about a model like this and would love to see a few news outlets run it as a pilot and see how it stacks up.

Many have tried it (as well as the oft-recommended micropayments idea) and it never justifies the added expense and overhead of the customization. Closest is probably the NYTimes’ gift article feature.

I really doubt the implementation difficulty is the actual reason. It's not hard to have an extra table of specific article permissions.

Probably true, it's more likely that it's a variation on "there are only a small percentage of people willing to pay any amount of money for an article, so if we offer one-time options, a large enough percentage of people who would have otherwise subscribed with recurring revenue instead pay one-time so their lifetime value is lower"

You could hit up a public library...

Looking online it looks like the newsstand price of an issue is around $10 (which I'd assume is heavily ad subsidized, if anyone is still buying print ads?) which is an interesting data point for a pricing model. (Of course, I looked online because I have no idea where I'd find a newsstand around here - the nearest newsstand that show up on google maps has reviews that say "It's just snacks and scratch tickets." and "three newspapers and no magazines" - I may have to stop by just to see what three newspapers they have :-)

Or just switch your browser to Reader Mode and it's free.

The public library [digital edition] is absolutely the correct answer. I maintain a library card at 3 different local municipal library systems. My local city's library offers access to several Digital Library apps, including Overdrive, Hoopla, and Libby. It took me a couple searches in Libby to locate the New Yorker and it offered up the current issue right away. The article is on page 32. It is ridiculous that anyone considers to access this from "The Public Internet" or the newyorker dot com website, rather than simply turning to your public library, which has been the go-to resource for basically everyone, for hundreds of years.

You're already paying for your library with your tax dollars. If you don't use it, you may lose it, but you will certainly lose out by subsidizing bums, vagrants, and other families who use the library to their heart's content.

The public library also features lots of streaming and CD music, videos, and video games, that you can freely check out without any cost. In fact, my local library staff told me that they've abolished overdue fees. Libby and the digital apps will automatically renew or return materials. My physical books even got auto-renewed three times before I needed to manually do it, or bring them back into the building.