I imagine micropayments for small sites to avoid DoS (e.g. from dumb AI scrapers) and maybe get decent profit if they become very popular, but mainly pay to keep the server running. They would be so small that someone who spends their entire day visiting different websites would pay less than their phone bill; and centralized scrapers with a decent amount of funding would still work.
Real funding would come in ways that don't depend on visitor count: patronage, government/industry grants, people running the sites having side jobs, UBI. Because:
- I'd rather avoid intellectual property and allow AI summaries, remixes, etc. without penalty to the main site
- Visitor count tends to benefit mainstream sites. Patronage and grants can support niche sites who expect few users that are willing to pay more, without gating mainstream visitors (via higher visitor micropayments) in case they become popular
- Visitor count benefits sites that have already been built. Patronage and grants support sites that look promising, but haven't been built and may fail. The latter include indie and experimental sites; the former only include sites that are easy to build, and sites whose success is predictable from people that already have money
- I'm skeptical that revenue from visitor count (even from ads or subscriptions) will remain sustainable long-term
The above doesn't only apply to traditional sites, but any digital product including ones people currently pay for, like books, movies, and video games. These creators need to make a living, but since their product is not physical, there is no need to tie revenue to copies sold, and I suspect tying revenue to patronage and grants would lead to better products.