I mean, I don't imagine I'd "pay" to leave comments, submit stories, or facts.

Maybe I'm an odd-breed but I see HN as a charitable place for those in the know to contribute to the pool of public knowledge.

I think the best version of HN (or equivalent) is full of people with that objective (e.g. wikipedia). The worst version is full of people grinding emotional axes (4chan) or self-promoting.

I think you'll find the people who are self-promoting (e.g. trying to start a new cryptocurrency, or a PR firm) will have much more resources to submit articles than good-samaritans.

The thing I do like is breaking an article into a list of cited facts. I like the brevity, and I like sources.