>First of all, I can and will visit any website I want, and I will use an ad blocker while doing so.
And so can LLMs, so I don't see why anyone should be upset about "stealing content"
>In either case the creator gets zero $. It could be argued that pirating might actually benefit the creator more - since it would increase overall usage/adoption/prevalence of the product/game. So your argument is kinda backwards.
So how do you decide (I'm asking you), who are the suckers who pay, and who are the ones that get it free? I say child a lot because it's really only kids who cannot see how a system like that plays out.
Just a heads up, with donation systems, typically ~1% of people convert to a donation.
Whoever can and wants to pay is free to pay. Everyone else is free to not pay. Not sure what the problem with that is - seems like a basic human right/freedom unless your brain is consumed by the marketing/advertising virus.
In many cases running something like an online game requires server s/infra , and also requires an active subscription - not something you can generally get around.