No. Not the *buying* of indulgences. The *gaining* of indulgences. I've gained a few partial indulgences myself. Didn't pay for a single one of them.
Here's one, from the inside cover of my Bible:
"An Indulgence of 3 years is granted to all the faithful who read the Holy Scriptures at least a quarter of an hour with the veneration due to the Divine Word and as spiritual reading."Ooooohhhhh!!!! Horrors!!!
So what's with the 3 years bit? In the early Church, there used to be very severe penances. They would take years to complete. So eventually the Church started substituting good works instead: prayers, almsgiving, pilgrimages, etc. The 3 years means that if you do this thing (in this case read the Bible with veneration), it is the equivalent of doing 3 years of severe penance. And the Church has the authority to mete out penance by nature of its power of binding and loosing.
The Catholiceducation.org article you posted was correct. The money was never supposed to be a purchase but a giving of alms--e.g. to the poor. That was abused and easily misunderstood, so the Church put a stop to that. But the doctrine still held and holds today.
I think there were a few years to that process. Again it wasn't after the 95 theses went up and the Church said "wait, this luther is right."