Wikipedia also has to regularly beg for donations and is probably something of an outlier.

Pretty much every podcast I've ever heard has sponsors and built-in ads, or at least shout-outs.

I do think Patreon-style funding is a really good model, but ultimately, most people will not pay for a thing if they can get it for free and tell themselves that other people will pay for it instead. Exceptions to that exist, but they're rare.