Getting "funding" from users? Customer vs Investor conflict

I'm pondering over a conflict I see in the startup world. Sorry if my text is too long to get to the point. When a product is initially launched, the founders/company start 2 priorities: 1. Deliver value to the users 2. Make money for yourself These are usually in somewhat of an equilibrium, because you need to achieve #1 to even get to #2. Then, if the company gets big VC investment and eventually IPOs, you get a new priority that seems to take the #1 spot - delivering a return for the investors and shareholders. The interests of users and investors are somewhat in conflict. For ex., it's not in the interest of the customer to spend hours scrolling on FB/Insta, but the folks at Meta will do everything in their power to maximize that metric and sell you ads. Given this conflict, we see that most major products turn to shit, but they still dominate through other means (acquisitions or other ways to fuck up competition). So, if you truly want to build the greatest possible product for the target audience, then VC/IPO/etc. doesn't seem to be the way. Bootstrapping is another way to do it, but it's ofc harder and you'll most likely not scale that fast or high. **Therefore the question - is there a way to get funding from users, besides them just paying you for the product?** An example could be corporate bonds, but I haven't heard this being practiced by startups. Another example - longer term pricing (ex. 3-5years), but I haven't seen that either and it's probably not very attractive to the user. p.s. sorry my ramble isn't clear enough, it's a bit late here and I'm tired