The real problem with ads is that you have to pay vastly more to remove them through a subscription (where it is even possible) than the revenue they would have brought.
If every Snapchat user paid $2/month, wouldn't Snapchat have decent revenue? For some service the infrastructure might cost a lot, but I don't think it applies to Snapchat (it's a very "ephemeral" photo-sharing platform, after all).
Another way would be to charge for every photo you upload. Those that share more pay more, which would make sense.
That's because the demand for subscription content is magnitudes less than ad-subsidized free content.
Even if you made a hybrid model, the content isn't that interchangeable. The type of customer who pays for a subscription is going to consume vastly different content than the freemium customer.
> the demand for subscription content is magnitudes less than ad-subsidized free content.
A lot of ad-subsidized content only "works" because by the time the user realizes that the content is subpar it's already too late and they've "paid" and can't take their money back.
This wouldn't work in a scenario where an explicit action needs to be taken (to agree to pay a fee) before consuming the content, and/or where due to laws/regulation the customer has the possibility to demand their money back if they've been misled.
The truth is that a lot of content on the internet isn't worth paying for.
>A lot of ad-subsidized content only "works" because by the time the user realizes that the content is subpar it's already too late and they've "paid" and can't take their money back.
Citation needed, because this sounds more like preference projection of someone who prefers subscription content than the majority of actual ad-subsidized content consumers.
Again, the type of customer who pays for a subscription is going to consume vastly different content than the freemium customer.
> preference projection of someone who prefers subscription content than the majority of actual ad-subsidized content consumers
No - I'm referring to clickbait, chumboxes or low-quality articles whose primary purpose is to show ads - the content itself is only there to lure you into seeing ads and is universally hated even by freemium customers.
I suspect that there's a huge amount of content like this which subsidizes the platforms, ad networks and various middlemen.
