I do see the V4V model as flawed consumers by in large are used to enjoying content for free and would much rather sell their eye balls to sponsors. The issue is the podcasters deals are done 1-1 so they are easily corrupted by certain sponsors.
If the platform for example, had an open auction where advertisers can pick categories they want to bid on and then the amount of listening minutes is matched with the amount of capital bidding for those listens.
So creators can get capital and who knows, they could even split some of that value with their listeners too.
Not saying the donation model should go away, I think its part of the ecosystem but it encourages creators to keep going and try to keep listeners as long as possible. In addition