I feel like Somethingawful figured it out 25 years ago. You can read a slightly censored version of the site for free, but if you want to post and read the swear words, it'll be $10. If you mouth off too bad and get banned, that's another $10. I guess it doesn't scale to world-eating business size, but I gladly sent them $10.
I'd say Lowtax was more of a hindrance than their business model; especially in retrospect. I always thought the edgy dirtbag thing was a bit of a put-on (which I enjoyed), but I was quite wrong on that, and it's a mistake I've learned not to make again.
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