> Facebook (and Google and Twitter) have inflicted the ad-supported business model on themselves.
No they did not, market did. Google is maybe a bit aside because it was first of its kind, but both twitter and facebook needed to have a large user base before even being remotely useful. In the presence of already entrenched free alternatives, getting to a critical mass of users with a paid service is impossible.
If there is a way to get your service out for free somebody will do it and then the race to the bottom begins. There are comparably very few people that are willing to pay for any virtual service compared to those that are okay with ads. So much so that if you try to make a paid service you will either have to be extremely differentiated (Netflix) or pander to some niche and charge quite big prices.
Stuff like Youtube Red can only exist because they already have all the creators and all the viewers, but Youtube would not exist or survive, were it the only option.
No they did not, market did. Google is maybe a bit aside because it was first of its kind, but both twitter and facebook needed to have a large user base before even being remotely useful. In the presence of already entrenched free alternatives, getting to a critical mass of users with a paid service is impossible.
If there is a way to get your service out for free somebody will do it and then the race to the bottom begins. There are comparably very few people that are willing to pay for any virtual service compared to those that are okay with ads. So much so that if you try to make a paid service you will either have to be extremely differentiated (Netflix) or pander to some niche and charge quite big prices.
Stuff like Youtube Red can only exist because they already have all the creators and all the viewers, but Youtube would not exist or survive, were it the only option.