That’s a great point! But I think there are a few aspects of this that potentially make it a minor issue… For one, the money probably comes from a subscription you’ve already paid, e.g. the $5/month you’d pay for a Coil subscription (one provider). But more importantly, the amounts are very small – about $0.36 / hour of read time – so even if you decide you don’t like an article, there’s relatively little lost.
Otherwise, since this is a browser technology, it’s actually possible to dynamically control the flow of money. So for example, we (the platform) or you (the writer) could add some custom Javascript that adds a button to the page – maybe it says “Start paying this writer” – and only enables monetization after the reader clicks that button. That’s just one way readers might get more control over everything.