The thing that changed in the mid-2000s was that we found ways to not only provide these services, but extract billions of dollars while doing it. Good for Mark Zuckerberg, but I doubt the internet would be hurting without that.
Now fucking everything about the world is a hustle to monetize every possible nook and cranny around content. There isn't even content anymore, it's nearly all AI slop as a substrate to grow ads on.
I am nostalgic for the era when I found "punch the monkey" irritating. People used to make websites as a labor of love.
My comment about not having a right to business models is in some ways more general. Regardless of whether this business model is protected for some other reason, business models in general aren't, and it's a common flawed argument that they are.
Its been 30 years and no one has been able to continue that "etc".
In practice, this cuts of 80% of the worlds population.
Catering to the lowest common denominator is how we got the Burger King guy on spirit airlines.
I have and do pay for website access. That doesn't mean much if the current model flocks to no paid services.
Say a a kid started throwing tantrums at school. By not punishing/ removing him you restrict the freedom of everyone else.
Fuck ads. What's absurd is tolerating them and the damage they do to media, consumers, kids, lesser and/or more honest businesses, culture, products, and so on all the way to the Windows and macOS system UIs.
At the same time, this has the same energy of "if we release all the files, the system will collapse". Maybe we need the billionaires to feel some pain sometimes (even if yes, we'll feel more overall).
Ads are speech.
No, they are not.
People have been brainwashed and legal systems have been paid and bought for to consider them as such, just like corporations have been whitewashed to be treated as "persons".
In any case, we regulate all other kinds of speech as well: explicit content, libel, classified information, cigarette ads, and so on.
I don’t think you need to count companies being able to put any message out there as free speech.
Granted, that's proven to be a horrible concept. So let's repeal that.
Five dollars a month to subscribe or whatever. If people get the value out of it, you can get them to pay it.
Maybe it could be good again, but not on the path it's on.