Yes. It's of course a perfectly valid (and widely-used) model to pay for hosting. But, by and large, only "serious" users who probably otherwise have a business model will do so. And there will inevitably be far less content on the platform.

On the one hand, I think it's sort of unfortunate that so much of the Web has come to be about "free" access (though paying for access with attention and time) but that does come from the perspective of someone who would be able and happy to pay with money instead.