Sure. I can give an example of something that is quite interesting. It's called Flattr, which is a program that would allow users to allocate small amounts of money to producers of content all over the web. The way it would work is that as a user I would sign up, and I would say I'm going to put $20 in my account this month, then I'm going to go all over the Internet; wherever I surf, and whatever I read, or whatever book I see or song I listen to, I click a Flattr button on each place that I like. If I click 10 times over the course of the month, then the $20 I allocated that month is divided by 10 and given out to the producers of all of that content.
That is one example of how independent content producers might get paid, and it's only one of many. Of course, it would need massive scale. It would need ubiquity. It would have to be everywhere in order for it to work. There are a number of programs like it.
It's a really interesting question to me: how do people get paid for doing work that has tremendous value but they're not being compensated for it monetarily?