Compensation for their time and energy. Imagine if your boss asked you the same question after a month of hard work: "Compensation for what?" I do like to make

Compensation for their time and energy. Imagine if your boss asked you the same question after a month of hard work: "Compensation for what?" I do like to make use of donation buttons when provided. I buy books and merch for the sole purpose of supporting creators across several mediums. For much of my life I was extremely impoverished and had to rely on piracy and other means to fulfill my consumption habits. However now that I can afford it, I try to return the favor by compensating creators and subsidizing the new generation of broke nerds. > why are we normalizing the idea that someone can suddenly start a youtube channel and now its the "responsibility" of subscribers to feed them? Why are we denormalizing the idea that people shouldn't be rewarded for the hard work that they do for their communities? No one is twisting your arm; ethical consumption is clearly an opt-in model in the current internet. You are free to continue pirating content or viewing it without ads. Especially if you consume a wide berth of content, which is hard to financially support at scale, or have political stances against locked-in platforms (I sure do). You are also free to be considerate of the time and energy people spend on these projects which often times become their life's work.