What would you do if all of your favorite sites switched to subscription models? Would that be a win in your book? Always honestly intrigued by such world views.
I have very few truly "favorite sites". Most of them are completely disposable. Eg, I don't see myself ever paying for a website that provides song lyrics -- it's a fully optional service, and entirely fungible.
I think it's possible a limited return to an "old internet" model to some extent, where some random person might just posts lyrics of their favorite band just because they like it.
For the very few actual favorites, probably.
> Would that be a win in your book? Always honestly intrigued by such world views.
Extremely so. First, no ads. Second, a site that must please its users or go bankrupt. That's a win/win in my book.
Such a change likely comes along with improvements in the site's quality. Eg, paid Youtube competitors don't want to feed me hogwash all day in hopes I watch more ads. Bandwidth is expensive, they're not getting any more money from me, and there are no ads to pay for increased consumption. So their priority becomes a smaller amount of high quality content.
In practice it seems be go subscription, and then make things that used to be free to everyone require not just the basic subscription but a premium one.
There aren't a lot such sites, though.
It's not about what "ought" or any sort of morality, more of a factual statement of how the world works.