Concept

Paywalls, but free for those who don't have the resources. Basically NOTAFLOF (No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds), but for the internet.

Community approval

If you ask for then newspaper for free, you write a quick description of why you need the newspaper for free. This description gets peer-reviewed by other people who are asking for the newspaper for free.

1. Paid or free?
2. If free, answer these questions
3. Your submitted answers of why you should get the service for free get added to a review pool
4. You review 3-5 answer sets from the review pool
5. Once you meet a trust threshold, then you're verified

This is maybe a little much, but it could be a scalable version of the "$5 or free" model, or "no-one turned away for lack of funds" whatever you want to call it.

Honor system

You could also

• Showing the people who are impacted by your decision not to pay
• Have people certify that it's necessary
• But not in a shame way
• Adding a badge for people who did pay (too visible?)

References

Substack