Yeah, the refrain is usually "anyone should be able to afford $8 a year", but I remember being teenager and even when I was making an income I still couldn't get a credit card. It's less about the money and more about the ability to pay.
You don't really need credit cards, we found ways to pay for domains and hosting back in the day when we weren't legally able to get one (due to being minors). Some smaller companies accept other ways to pay that can be used anonymously. I definitely couldn't afford $8 a year thought, so others were covering that.
