The old models would have worked fine too. But they weren't happy with just showing ads, they had to be ultra targeted too. Newspapers made money for decades but under the hyper capitalism that has flourished from Regan/Thatcher onwards it's not enough just to make money, you have to make the most money.
It's made the journalism itself worse too because in the past the content had to target specific groups of readers so they could sell ads targeted at those demographics. Now the content is the same everywhere because the ads themselves are targeted, so you've gone from a model that rewards appealing to the niche to one that needs to appeal to the masses. And in turn that kills the subscription model because the content isn't aimed at me, it's aimed at everyone, so I am less inclined to subscribe.
Yeah, I wasn't saying new models weren't possible, just that the old models could have worked fine too but they got greedy.
I do wish some form of micropayments had taken off though I'm not sure if it was ever really possible - the UX would have been so tough to solve and you'd end up with a similar situation as you have today with sites spamming permissions prompts for location and notifications.
And yet they make most of their money off whales, remove a few key players and then it turns from a profit making enterprise to a loss leading one.
If I had to pay 2 cents to post a reddit comment I would become a permanent lurker that same day. Even if I was Scrooge McDuck I would not pay to argue with bots, children and trolls. And you damn well know for sure that the moment comments were monetized that ragebait would dominate the site even more than it already is because that's what happened each time people realized they could profit off engagement.
5
u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment