This is an extremely unpopular take in today’s world where 99% of what you use is expected to be “free” and subsidized by those with interests thoroughly misaligned with yours.
Nevertheless, it is my strong opinion that offering paid service is the only way to a healthy ecosystem, healthy competition, products that actually benefit the user, and the market that works as the market is supposed to (and that Big Social innovating[0] the subversion of this model is a tradegy with net negative effects on society).
Not offering paid[1] service to customers means ultimately either 1) dying or 2) making someone else your paying customer (e.g., the advertisers being offered the users as the product).[2] That “someone else”, by being the source of revenue, will dictate how the service evolves, and their interests will not be aligned with the users’ except by sheer accident.
In case of services like Bluesky, I doubt API access can be excluded from the equation, since it costs money, and when inevitably abused a lot of it, sadly.
Federation overhead could in theory be subsidized by paying customers, or there could be smart controls such as letting certain servers federate for free if it benefits paying users while charging others an honest fee[3].
Finally, let’s not forget the good old “charge for the app”. Sure, being open means someone can build another, cheaper app, and someone will use it, but believe it or not—that’s normal competition; make your app better, respect your users, turn profit.
Bluesky’s accepting large investment is a signal of not going in this direction, and is therefore worrying.
[0] It could be said that some companies (e.g., Adobe and Microsoft) did something like that earlier, subverting the market via offering a product for free by not seriously chasing pirates. When someone’s choice is between two paid products—instead of free awesome product everyone pirates vs. some mediocre paid product—the competition works much better. However, their core offers were still paid, and crucially those were not social media services that prey on our attention and anxiety.
[1] Before someone mentions the disadvantaged: offering subsidized options to those who need it is not mutually exclusive with a straightforward commercial model.
[2] There’s also 3) becoming another Wikipedia, which happens every so often… Let’s be realistic.
[3] A lot of courage would be required, as I can already hear the “walled garden” outcries.