The last two years I have begun believing that the internet just might be able to give some of that back to us artists that it has stolen.
People have gotten used to just have it all for free, and it is a long hard fight to turn that around. I sometimes talk to young people about how they listen to music and almost all of them just use youtube or Spotify or some other free way of getting it. When I was a teenager a lot of the money I earned on doing jobs like newspaper delivery, went to records and comics. They do not realise that the whole free-concept has ruined the arts, and how could they. They didn't create all this.
I think that the idea of Kickstarter, Patreon and Liberapay etc. is a good way, but it is very much uphilll!
Diaspora is just a free, federated network. I have placed my bitcoin addresses there and then people have supported me, mainly fans of Phill from GCHQ.
In reality I think we need to sell real things, just like the musicians have to play live... Things that can be copied digitally will maybe never really be able to give an income... but who knows what will happen :)