No one likes to pay for things, but ultimately, someone has to pay for all of this. Network infrastructure, software development, and media creation don’t just happen, they all require significant resources. They can be paid for in all kinds of different ways, but they will be paid for.

At present, a large amount of the cost is covered by advertising and the sale of user data. That is what drives nearly all of the enshitification we see. It keeps us from having to deal with what we’re paying, but it makes our internet experiences, and our lives, worse in all kinds of ways.

If we could switch over to a system where we actually paid directly to cover the costs it would be an improvement for almost everyone. It would also reduce the overall cost by eliminating all of the middle men who take a chunk of the money in exchange for facilitating the destruction of our privacy.

There are a lot of ways we could pay directly. A lot of similar things are handled directly by various levels of government and paid for out of taxes. Having each person pay for what they use, in small amounts as they use it, would be another. OP’s suggestion has its tradeoffs, but it would be an improvement over what we have now.

Not what I was saying. My intention is that a better informed world existed when a newspaper was minor pocket change. Minor pocket change is the golden standard; not subscriptions; not user accounts; not some minimum transaction for middlepersons nonsense. I should be able to easily create five bucks online with little effort and setup a thing where every time I visit PieFed or Lemmy, or use FreeCAD, or KiCAD, or update my distro, or use Graphene, a proportional fraction of a cent is allocated. These projects then have the opportunity to report their overhead for hosting and expenses in terms of the actual end user’s “cost”. Keep it all optional. The key is to make it as frivolous, noncommittal, and private as the spare change in one’s pocket used to buy a newspaper from a machine or street vendor, but brought into the modern age where every writer and section of the paper needs to be paid directly.

Some people want the paper delivered and on their driveway every day. That type of system is fine and a primary form of support. For the average person, every such commitment is a stress in the uncertainty of scrounging by most of the time. There should be a way of contributing that is not predicated on rock solid financial stability.

Like with my auto body paint businesses, I had massive overhead to float for supplies. I actually make a small fraction of that money. If I land a large account for a used car lot. I may need to go a month or two before my purchase orders get paid and I may work on 20-30 cars in that timespan. That is $20k-$40k in billable work and I’m footing the supply bill until that clears. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been begging jobbers for credit, getting super creative about how to mix paints when I’m missing some tones, and eating whatever the dollar store has on sale. It is boom or bust when dealing with used car lots. I had the same working union jobs. That type of person is likely to want to contribute when times are good, but never wants to commit beyond the here and now. The lack of privacy, and minimum arbitrary standards to support specific projects that disproportionately contribute in ways that do not reflect their use for the user, are reasons for most people to avoid contributing anything all together. The initial hill to climb is too much for most people to overcome. All I am saying is that the hill should be much lower, and the stalkerware snipers and toll bridge troll at the top should be dispatched. The system should be a true nonprofit and target a model with nano transactions like AdSense, and the culture of EFF and FSF.