Talking about digital/online content specifically, paywalls and subscriptions are limited in effectiveness and for most creators probably do more harm than good. It is an attempt to artificially limit something that is not limited (digital information). Most people won't pay, and many will look for ways around paywalls or simply find the same info elsewhere for free. People who are going to pay to support your work will pay anyway. By locking your content away behind a paywall you greatly limit its reach to primarily those people who already know and like your work. Then there is also the problem of the traditional payment methods you mention, which is even more limiting on top of being invasive to privacy. Many people in the world couldn't pay for that content even if they wanted to because of lack of ability. But if it's otherwise freely available to them they might want to check it out, and they might even like it enough to share it along to someone who may want to pay you something for it. If it's good enough it's going to get shared anyway with or without your permission. Why not place yourself in a better position to benefit from it being freely accessible? Subscriptions and paywalls don't do this.