&gt; Donations rarely work.<p>That implies &quot;most&quot; content has negligible value. People that offer quality content seem to have no problem getting people to donate. Just because you haven&#x27;t seen this doesn&#x27;t mean it doesn&#x27;t exist.<p>&gt; They certainly fail any game theoretic model.
&gt; A rationally self-interested person would not donate,<p>This isn&#x27;t particularly relevant, as humans are not &quot;rational actors&quot;. Even thought economists like to pretend otherwise, &quot;Homo economicus&quot; obviously doesn&#x27;t actually exist in reality.<p>&gt; Naive articles like this don&#x27;t bother factoring in what the chance is that your donation will make a difference<p>Sure they did. You just don&#x27;t like the results. Good content will usually be paid for, and junk content will go out of business, just like they <i>should</i>.<p>&gt; most people would rather be a freeloader than a sucker.<p>Your politics is showing. Such a limited view is not helpful.