micro payments

I wanted to download some data from Wolfram Alpha. This requires a "pro" subscription. I bought a pro subscription, which is $5/month. When I try to download the data, I get this window:

Note that the download button is greyed out. This is because I only have 500 "credits". Apparently you need "credits" to download data, and this data requires 600 of them. So I need to purchase more, somehow.

I feel like payments for online stuff is broken. Everything is generally free, but when you want to do something cool, money is required. But because most people don't pay for anything, the people that do pay for stuff end up effectively paying for all the people who don't pay for stuff too, so it's more expensive than it needs to be.

Also, because few people pay, companies feel like they need to trap "payers" into paying even more with things like "monthly subscriptions" and "credits", both of which are trying to get me to pay for stuff I won't use (since I'll forget to revoke my subscription, and I won't use all the credits I purchase).

I feel like people should submit to micro payments online. I should pay maybe $0.01 to run a query on wolfram alpha. People who run few queries will pay practically nothing, but in aggregate, they will pay something, which from wolfram alpha's point of view will be substantially more than nothing, and may motivate more straightforward and reasonable prices for things.