It's not that uncommon for people to pay small donations to free releases on Bandcamp and similar sites where you can set your own amount. Most won't do it, but there's clearly a subset of consumers who do, or this business strategy wouldn't exist.

Personally I have no issue paying for books and other media as it's not the price keeping me away. My issue is that any amount of that money going to providers that are pushing this DRM locked content, which I will absolutely under no circumstances support, no matter how cheap.

You're projecting. On my PayPal account alone there's ~1k worth of various donations to things I support just in the past year. Maybe half is individuals.

Giving money so a good thing you enjoy can continue existing really isn't a concept that's completely out there for most people. There's a thriving ecosystem of platforms for funding/tipping/donating.