You are an exception. If one in 83 unique visitors donated I'd be well off, but it's not the case. I'm a bit tired of people pretending the internet could survive on donations and micropayments.
Affiliate marketing works well for my niche. I wanted to start similar sites about other topics, but if those don't naturally lead to certain purchases, they're extremely hard to effectively monetise.
That's another pattern I really dislike, and deliberately avoid. I don't want to use my content as a bargaining chip to collect emails or what-have-you. I have that luxury because my topic is easily monetised. Most content creators don't.
In general, the internet got incredibly annoying, but I can understand why. Part of it is because we feel entitled to free content. There are few business models that allow people to be rewarded for their work while still offering a product for free. It usually involves selling something the user's data or attention.
Affiliate marketing works well for my niche. I wanted to start similar sites about other topics, but if those don't naturally lead to certain purchases, they're extremely hard to effectively monetise.