For what it's worth, and there's lots of reasons this hasn't and won't happen, I think micropayments are the solution here.
But until that happens, ads fill a middle ground: users don't want to pay and creators want to be paid.
But until that happens, ads fill a middle ground: users don't want to pay and creators want to be paid.
The recent @patio11 Complex Systems podcast lays out how it works:
https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/justin-kuiper...
But RSS made tracking very hard. And while I know that's your point (not wanting to be tracked), one reason it works in YouTube videos is there's a lot of analytics that can be used to advocate for rates (and track what's skipped, what's watched, etc).