zlacker

Fair criticism that I used "ad revenue" as a generality, I was more specifically thinking of AdSense ads and the like. I think there are plenty of forms of advertising that are better for the relationship and less exploitative of users, such as corporate sponsorship or sponsored content ("featured" search results, brand collaborations etc.) As long as the relationship is clear when something is paid vs organic.

> Now payment processors and banks also get a share of the surveillance cake.

I agree this is a problem. I work on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, so that's my preferred solution to the problem, but there are other approaches to addressing the poor state of privacy and payments too. I don't think that that being a problem means that the relationship we have with advertising isn't as bad though.

> If rich people move to subscriptions, this subsidy ends.

There are plenty of examples where this is not the case. The freemium model exists in places where injected advertisements are not the norm, such as free to play games. Fortnite whales subsidize millions of low income players to get a high quality game for free. Whether or not you think the relationship between Epic and its players is another question, but it's a model that can continue to exist without advertisement. Especially when free users are necessary to provide content for paying users, like posts on Twitter or Reddit, or players in a game.

>>wbobei+(OP)
Freemium, by definition, means that free users get inferior service compared to premium users. This is not the case with purely ad funded services such as Google search.

Granted, the difference between the tiers may be small engouh in some cases for this to be an acceptable compromise, but the principle is still the same.