I'm torn because unbundling also allows for niche publications to get the readers who are interested in reading a few articles but not enough to pay for a full subscription to a publication they may or may not like. I guess another solution to that would be the heavily-discounted "intro" period offer or x-free articles per month. For me there are a few magazines I enjoy reading the occasional article from but don't want to pay for a subscription because the costs would quickly get out of hand.

But I acknowledge that paying per article could hurt the "subsidies" within a paper, for example the revenue from sports section readers helping pay for investigative journalism, leading to a race to the bottom as you point out.