Do journals make money by forcing people to pay a certain amount for an article?

Every year the revenue from article purchases decline as public access policies are established by funding organizations.Significant revenues come from institutional subscriptions and a growing source of revenue is value-added services on top of the content analytics, discovery tools, etc.

When someone pays, the costs to deliver the article are zero, so they make a lot of money.It happens, but it doesn't happen often.It encourages people to get the journal.

Do people buy research articles?Annual journal subscription costs are paid per university.

My understanding is that scholarly publishers make a tiny fraction of their revenue from charging for individual paper downloads.Most of the revenue comes from institutions.