I’m not sure if this is new, but when I clicked on the /r/pics protest post link from the frontpage here, I was redirected to this: https://old.reddit.com/premium
I’m not sure if this is well-known or not that they’re pushing it now, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it, especially on old.reddit.
The problem is that selling your data + targeted advertising is always going to be more lucrative than a subscription model. So even if you are willing to pay a subscription, it’s usually only a matter of time before the social media company in question changes tack. Especially if they have shareholders and/or venture capital investors breathing down their necks. If you run it like Wikipedia is run, I’m pretty sure you can operate a social media company on subscriptions/donations, but as a business model that doesn’t make sense as it is not the least effort way to make the most money.
Yup, agree totally. Only way it can work is if the org running it is a not for profit with great transparency, which hopefully is what we will see with the likes of Lemmy etc.
There is an argument to make that things like reddit or even Facebook (original fb, not what it is now) should be publicly owned services. They CAN provide value to society, similar to how a town hall can.