Sorry, I see that as a cookie wall, not a pay wall.

So yes, you have to accept cookies to read the article, but you don’t have to give them your credit card info, and American sites just set cookies anyway.

You should use a browser that lets you burn tabs’ cookies if you’re worried about it. (That’s what I do.) Alternatively get an ad blocker. My browser does its own ad blocking. It lets “sponsored” articles through, and similarly spoken ads included by the author in podcasts and videos but I don’t see Google’s ads on YouTube with it.

Browser fingerprinting is real and google and other advertisers track you whether you allow cookies or not.