I think there are people on Patreon who give most of their content for free, too. The payments are just to support creator, like with Super Testnet's courses.

Undisciplined

I don’t know much about it. Other than it was supposed to compete with Patreon who was kicking off right wing content creators. 

grayruby

Can Stacker News Be a Lightning Locals, Too?

I don't think it's the point. I think it's the model. The point was to have a place for creators to interact with their supporters that wasn't beholden to some Big Tech platform. I believe there are creators on Locals who don't put up a paywall.