Paying to remove ads and paying for access are essentially the same thing right? They have to monetize it in some way. Ads are going to implemented whether people pay or not. At least now you have a choice whether you pay with your data or money.
They aren’t the same thing. With ads the monetization strategy is to implement ads to annoy the user into paying. Then finally paying for it is letting them know that they succeeded in implementing ads in a way that got you to give them money. You are thus incentivizing an ad driven internet.
Paying for access is paying for the service because you think it is good enough to spend money on. This is incentivizing the development of a good service.
Data harvesting another matter entirely. TikTok is going to harvest the data of paying customers and free customers regardless.
With ads the monetization strategy is to implement ads to annoy the user into paying
The thing is, the vast majority of websites exclusively have an ad tier and the vast majority of internet users will tolerate any amount of ads because they’re not going to pay for these services.
Paying for access is paying for the service because you think it is good enough to spend money on.
if I pay for a subscription to TikTok then I obviously think that it is good enough to spend money on. And it’s not like there’s any guarantee paying is going to improve a service. Netflix started off with no ads and look where it’s at. You have to pay for ads and they keep increasing subscription costs.
