@David_Bartlett I think we'll ultimately need ways for people who are posting content, hosting instances or building user experiences to be able to sustain their work. I think there could be a mix of ways to do that but it will be important to carefully design how these are implemented so we don't repeat the mistakes and issues we've seen with surveillance capitalism, horrible ad experiences, etc.
One of the biggest challenges we've had with current monetization models on the web is that they tend to keep users disconnected from content creators. This has lead to a lot of downstream bad practices. Some good exceptions to this are models like Patreon and paid newsletters which focus on building direct connections between creators and their audience. I think the fediverse can expand on these ideas because activity pub is a far stronger connection.
Lots to think about here but I think it will be important to figure this out for any real alternative to the walled gardens to emerge and thrive at scale.