one of the great things about being an adult is paying for content online
i used to be one of those people who felt like the internet was degrading whereas in reality it was just becoming more niche. free ("freemium") content is nearly impossible to consume these days - youtube videos get frequent ad breaks, literally half of the front page on pinterest is ads (+ some private pins on my profile were deleted because they were "unsafe". i think it was photos of models, i suppose skinny = eating disorder these days, okay), reddit is full of bots...
now, that is the mainstream internet. it doesn't fit what i want, but it works for most people. you pay in your attention instead of money, and get entertainment / social connection / cool pictures.
the amazing thing is that is not the only way. after i started paying for creators' content, i had been amazed by the difference - the communities paid creators are gathering are usually rich in thoughtful comments, there are no ads (!), it feels like there is actually a chance of a real human connection (not necessarily making friends, i mean an equivalent of chatting to a person on the street, but online... just, chill, normal, and not loud).
it's fun and great and feels just like it did when i first went on dial-up internet back in 2000s. so far, i got paid-for email, search engine (kagi), and i am subsribed to 5 different paid-for channels on websites similar to patreon.
re: music, i think i want to buy albums instead of being subsribed to any music server. it's nice to listen to full albums instead of just the snippets of it.
i'm so excited. the internet can be fun!