• Amju Wolf
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    1 year ago

    Except not at all. This isn’t what it costs them or what your data (targeted ad views) are worth. This is what the hope a few suckers will pay them (and to get you used to the idea of extremely expensive premium services), and otherwise at least 3 (but probably more) orders of magnitude more than they’d make if you watched the ads.

    All these subscriptions have the same problem: they’re incredibly pricey, offer almost nothing in return (they usually still track you), and if you had to pay them all you’d have like at least a $2k hole in your budget just for subscriptions.

    It just doesn’t make sense.

    • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I’m not sure that you’re not underestimating the cost for these sorts of services. The only long running sort of social media (BBS) I know of that is and has been for decades straight pay for access is The WELL. And they need to charge $15 a month.

      https://www.well.com/join/pricing/

      Of course, they’re not anywhere near the scale of Facebook, but they are similar to a mid sized fediverse server from what I can tell. I honestly think the actual thing going on is most people find value in a free service, but don’t find enough value to pay what it’d cost to make it a straightforward pay for service business.