In the Netherlands, a new way to access digital news articles is making noise, and it may mean trouble for subscription publishers.A recent announcement by The New York Times and Axel Springer Digital Ventures of a $3.8 million dollar investment in the Dutch website and app Blendle could be a transformative event. While the website and app are currently only available in The Netherlands, this investment can be seen as a potential springboard for expansion into Europe and North America.The service is a simple concept: Charge users a fee per article instead of charging an entire subscription. Users are able to choose which articles they would like to read from participating newspapers and magazines. The chosen articles are all displayed in a feed format similar in design to Twitter.Launched last April by two former Dutch journalists, the service now has 129,000 registered users within the Netherlands. Two-thirds of these people are under the age of 35, below the average age of a typical newspaper subscriber. De Volksrant, co-founder Alexander Klopping’s former paper, reported to Businessweek they plan on seeing $76,000 this year from sales through the app.The single article payment model could potentially be a problem for publishers looking to increase their site subscriptions, as metered sites already get a low conversion rate of about .02%. With Blendle, articles range from 13 cents to 38 cents apiece, depending on the overall price set by the publisher. New users get an immediate credit for 2.5 Euros, the equivalent of $3.18. If the user decides in a relatively short amount of time that they do not want to read the article, they can have their money refunded. Otherwise, Blendle takes a 30% cut of the article sale price.It’s clear that Blendle appeals to those who wouldn’t be likely to purchase a digital newspaper or magazine subscription, such as younger audiences. But on the plus side, while the app is not a subscription service, it does register users IDs and credit card information. If this information was shared with publishers, they could use it to convert high-frequency Blendle users into subscribers.Blendle has potential appeal to subscription publishers who see a large amount of visitors, but a lower than average conversion rate. With its unconventional audience and mass delivery setup, publishers may finally capture that elusive segment of the market that is only interested in small amounts of content, but is still willing to pay for it.