It's like the permissions problem (really easy to prompt, really annoying to do so, really really bad to just assume yes or no all the time) except worse.
In regards to distributed serving using the client endpoints it has a strong tendency to be more work, less reliable, and not as scalable (see peertube). What has seemed to work is offloading as much of the functionality for that user as you possibly can to that user's device. E.g. want to play a game against the computer? Run the chess engine WASM bundle on your device instead of the server (lichess does this).
With the cut payment providers currently keep it still seems like an unsolved problem for micropayments
This revenue model has turned out to be quite profitable in gaming and creates an experience where most people can use the software for free but a long tail of users spend lots of money to have icons next to their name or elsewhere on the site.
For chess you can imagine how this might work, for other software it is not always as clear.
still has a 5.5 cent overhead but that's a lot better than whats currently on offer
Another idea that comes to mind is that the server side could be somehow run by the connected users. Users have storage + cpu cycles. Similar to torrent as long there's enough users (seeders) the game server will continue to work. Lichess for instance has tens of thousands players online 24/7.