People have looked for better business models as long as the internet was around. It always comes back to ads.
As it turns out, nobody wants to pay for micro-transactions, and organizations with more then 1 employee can't survive off Patreon.
So, you get labour of love bloggers, a handful of donation-funded individuals making youtube videos, and everyone else in an arms race to put as many frigging ads on their sites as they can.
> As it turns out, nobody wants to pay for micro-transactions ...
Ad-serving systems clearly involve micro-transactions. With payments as small as $.0001 or less. There's no reason why ad-blocking intermediaries couldn't participate.
I suspect that you're referring to "micro-transactions" via PayPal or whatever, at $1 per article or more. It's not surprising that nobody wants to pay that much.
As it turns out, nobody wants to pay for micro-transactions, and organizations with more then 1 employee can't survive off Patreon.
So, you get labour of love bloggers, a handful of donation-funded individuals making youtube videos, and everyone else in an arms race to put as many frigging ads on their sites as they can.