@atomicpoet
I have no issue with subscriptions and commerce/transactions.

Ads, or better saying 'commercial ads', require monopolistic power on the platform. This has been the norm since the first days of newspapers, magazines, radio, tv... and social media has been no different.

The fact is that given the choice, audiences (people) don't want ads. We gladly pay for removing them.

We all do 'Ads' all the time, when we pitch our ideas or speak about our products and services, and that is all fine as long as people freely chooses to listen to us.

Any platform expecting to monetize 'Ads', will need to force them through their audiences, and that is a fundamental abuse of the relationship, which requires some sort of power (ie. lock-in) on the platform side in order to be implemented.

This need or requirement will quickly come at odds with freedom and transportability.

If I am given the question: 'Would you pay $4 a month for half the ads?', I'd reply: 'I'd gladly pay $8 for ZERO ads'... problem is that there are many powerful actors who would happily pay a lot more for keeping them.

I think we need to think a bit more out-of-the-box here... in a world with infinite searching and indexing options, we don't need ads any more. Ads are not a solution, they are part of the problem.

We really want the content, the products, the music, the articles, the poetry, the news, the opinions, the movies, the art... and we need to pay for them to their creators... but there are many ways to do that without ads. Let's focus on those ways.

#NoAds