Comment Re:Whats the cost to be free of ads? (Score 2) 142
Let's look at the numbers (US Dollars):
2019 Revenue - $70.7 Billion
2019 Active Users - 2.7 Billion
If every single user stayed and paid an equal subscription price, you'd be on the hook for about $26/year. Of course, some percentage of those accounts are bots and a large number of real users will not stick around if they have to pay. And splitting the collection into ad supported and paid subscriptions won't work at this scale because the more people opt out of ads, the less value the remaining pool has, causing the subscription price to increase, which in turn will drive more users away from the platform. Vicious cycle...
For a sense of how it will play out, look at the struggle for newspapers trying to move online. Those that move to a subscription model see sharp drops in readership as users flee to another platform.
The bottom line is that we like to whine about privacy but in the end, "free" stuff wins.