Nonetheless, it is pretty well-made and needed, especially since they care about internationalization.
Translation: Not a paywall service.
Patreon is largely that function for people. The ability to just get donations existed long before. A tool to combine donations with access to exclusive stuff is the main focus of Patreon.
Personally, I see paywall-service as unfortunate because paywalls shouldn't exist. We need to find solutions (like patronage not tied to paywalls) to fund creative works that aren't restricted or freemium or whatever.
I think if something's valuable enough, someone will be willing to cover the cost, irrespective of whether it's also freely available.
Hence the efforts to build better coordination models (such as https://snowdrift.coop is doing).
Why not?
Paywalls are a compromise that dramatically reduces the overall benefit a work has in order to get over the freerider problem that public goods face.
Basically: the PAY part isn't the problem, the WALL part is.
And other than securing funding, there's nothing else positive about paywalls (although I'll admit there's potential arguments around ideas like people appreciating things more when they have to pay for them — things that still don't anywhere near outweigh all the negatives that paywalls have)
"What are the differences between Liberapay and other recurrent crowdfunding platforms like Patreon?
1. Liberapay is only for donations, meaning that transactions must not be linked to a contract nor a promise of recompense."
They only allow reccuring donations.