I believe that in the last couple of years the line between donation and begging has been blurred.

You have things on the extreme side like people begging on tiktok live doing shoutouts to every viewer that donates a significant gift.On the IRL side you also have people donating to the craziest streamers doing the most outrageous stuff outside. Then you also have super donations on Youtube on live podcasts.

When donations are incorporated on a social app it fosters an environment that makes donating acceptable and fun. Hardly anyone is going to trust their debit card/credit card details to a random site, but the masses will trust buying credits/donations/subscriptions through tiktok,youtube, twitch, patreon etc.

I think the one trick is using subscriptions that people opt into one time and just forget about. Using the dodgy psychology tricks of gym memberships to actually help people.

If that's the case, not sure if that's better than ads. I'd rather workout in an ads filled gym for free than paying for la fitness gym membership

I would 100% rather pay a fee. Also for those ads to make economic sense, the gym would be packed wall to wall.

Personally, I think ads can be quite predatory, which is why I dislike them (if ads themselves had better ethics and curation, I might think otherwise -- I have less issues with sponsorships elected by creators). That most people choose not to pay is a problem I think, but I think even ideally not everyone would pay (and that's fine): they may not have the means (although I guess they could just pay a smaller amount instead), or have too many other subscriptions (that they find need more money). I personally donate to a lot of services knowing that many won't pay (and many aren't able to), and I'm happy to contribute (although I think it would be better for everyone if they considered donating more!)