I’ve asked the Kagi team before to provide a pay-per-search option.
Of course, I would pay 2c per search! Or even 5c. Or maybe even 10c!
But, no, I’m not going to pay a lump sum up front. And certainly not every month through a subscription.
There are good paywall options out there that don’t eat into your % and that are effortless to set up. The user on the paying end doesn’t have to make a profile with the payment processor, either.
For a proof of concept, just look at Yalls.
https://yalls.org/
Just to be clear: I know Yalls runs on the bitcoin "Lightning Network." I am fully aware that many HN readers don't see the use case for bitcoin yet. It is my firm conviction, if micropayments had existed earlier in the development phase of the internet, we wouldn't be flooded by adds today.
The Lighting network allows for such payments, as little as a fraction of a dollar cent.
Users don't even need to know or see that in the background you're running your payment rails over bitcoin. A wallet like BBW can simply show you a dollar amount, and when paying, all the uses sees is that he paid a few dollar cents.
https://www.bbw.sv
I think that the current obstinacy or refusal to use the micropayment tools that exist today are holding us back and are keeping the world firmly in the grasp of Big Advertising.
And I get it: the market if flooded by nonsense "crypto" coins or nonsense NFT projects, that are obvious scams or money grabs. Numerous early websites were plain nonsense, and plenty of people thought that because of that, the Internet would go nowhere. Some pushed through though and saw the bright future behind the clouds.