zlacker

This is what I would have guessed, or otherwise it would be hard to explain why e.g. YouTube stuck with a purely ad-driven model for so long. Also subscribers usually get unlimited content for a flat fee whereas ads-based users pay incrementally for bandwidth and resources consumed.

I think it's possibly useful to think of the revenue streams as a form of diversification. For example, there's value in Google diversifying some of their dependence on ad revenue.

>>ants_e+(OP)
I don't think it's diversification, I think they just have to have the option to point the complainers and regulators at. They don't actually want anyone to use that option any more than they want anyone to use firefox while they pay to keep firefox around.