The issue is that an alternate service can only grow in the gaps if it has a viable business model: so far, monetizing internet services for the general public without advertising and tracking is a mostly-unsolved problem, despite interesting efforts like Brave.
> monetizing internet services for the general public without advertising and tracking is a mostly-unsolved problem
I feel like that's not a real problem. Or, maybe only a problem for services that care more about having a ton of users than being profitable and sustainable.
There are quite a few services (SmugMug, Vimeo, NetFlix, etc.) that charge money, don't have advertisements, and are doing just fine.
It's weird that so many web companies decide to go the sleazy advertisement/tracking/malware route rather than just charge money for the services they provide.
> It's weird that so many web companies decide to go the sleazy advertisement/tracking/malware route rather than just charge money for the services they provide.
You will find very quickly how reluctant people are to pay for anything despite a few cultural-phenomenon-level exceptions like Netflix.
I'm amazed how many people, like my own coworkers making $100k+, listen to Spotify all day every day yet will endure advertisement after advertisement in their stream of music instead of paying $10/month. If someone isn't even going to pay for Spotify despite it being a central part of their day to day experience, GG to your little service.
I think advertising has played a major hand in shepherding us into this position that divorced us from the idea of paying for content we enjoy. There is going to have to be a major cultural change to bring us back into a healthy relationship with content.
One common response to this is "well, maybe everyone should be hobbyists again making content for free," but surely we can find a better middleground than structuring things such that we depend on people toiling away in their freetime to produce the content we happen to want. For example, I'd rather my favorite content providers be able to feed themselves working on this content. We both benefit: I get to enjoy more content. Depending on hobby work doesn't get us there.
> You will find very quickly how reluctant people are to pay for anything despite a few cultural-phenomenon-level exceptions like Netflix.
That's absolutely not true, though. People buy stuff all the time. Clothing, shoes, sporting goods, dishes, food, housewares, books, DVDs, etc.
The "freemium" approach Spotify takes is a poor example because they're not charging for their real service of music streaming, but instead to get rid of advertisements. They've moved their own goalposts, and the question isn't "Is streaming music worth $10 a month?" but "Is it worth $10 a month to get rid of this commercial?" If the options were "Pay $10 to stream music" or "Listen to nothing," the results might be a lot different.
> One common response to this is "well, maybe everyone should be hobbyists again making content for free," but surely we can find a better middleground than structuring things such that we depend on people toiling away in their freetime to produce the content we happen to want. For example, I'd rather my favorite content providers be able to feed themselves working on this content. We both benefit: I get to enjoy more content. Depending on hobby work doesn't get us there.
I'm not making that argument, and you're setting up a false dichotomy. There's no reason content creators need to use advertisements and can't charge for their content instead. It worked fine for music and movies for over a hundred years, and books have been using that model for hundreds of years before that.
I think the world of consumption has changed though. People expect things (music, games, etc) to be free and balk at paying for them. Why would they when there is likely someone offering something comparable for free but supported by ads?
Maybe you could ship them a real item as part of the service somehow
I'd never pay $10 for a character in a game, but I'd happily pay $15 for a plastic toy that coincidentally unlocks something in a game I was enjoying anyway
That's not what Spotify is doing. The choice is pay us cash or pay us with your attention by watching ads.
Why go to work, earn cash with your attention, and pay for Spotify when you can directly monetize your attention on-demand in real-time at the rate you consume? That's what advertising allows.
That's a very good observation. I think it's true that having the free option changes the context very much.
There are people who pay for paid password managers when free alternative products available. I myself pay for a number of services (very reasonably priced) when I could have used free alternatives. The difference is the guys I pay don't offer a free edition without ads and nonsense like that. They just build a great software and ask to pay for their effort.
It's not just removing advertisements. Spotify Premium lets you listen to any song they have anytime you want. I thought the free version only let you listen to their pregenerated stations?
> One common response to this is "well, maybe everyone should be hobbyists again making content for free," but surely we can find a better middleground than structuring things such that we depend on people toiling away in their freetime to produce the content we happen to want. For example, I'd rather my favorite content providers be able to feed themselves working on this content.
If you do it as a hobby, it's not toiling. It becomes toiling when you do it as work, especially if you have to please advertisers instead of making the content you love.
The distribution of content might be quite different - but remember that ads aren't free - they're just another middleman that has to be paid, priced in in the cost of goods, a net drain from the point of view of the consumers (on first approximation at least).
Vimeo was so well positioned to beat out youtube back in the day. Stage6 had just shut down and vimeo was offering HD while youtube was stuck with low res. But then they made the mistake of banning video game content for not being artsy enough which led to youtube jumping in popularity.
