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A lot of people in the internet / business world have a piece of insight that I think is wrong. It goes like this: "The cardinal sin of the internet was basing it on advertising. If we based it on subscription instead, we wouldn't have all of these /problems/."
The problems they imagine this would have solved include privacy, which I agree would be (and is) much more heavily protected in a system that is based on subscription rather than advertising (which thrives on your data.)
But they also seem to think that it would help with radicalization, filter bubbles, and the loss of shared reality. This is just wrong. They're only looking at what's right in front of them...right now subscription services are made for them...because they are wealthy.
And thus they like the content that is behind paywalls (The New York Times, Bloomberg, WaPo) because it is made for people like them. It's more well funded, sure, but that's not what decides what content gets made...the audience always and forever decides what gets made.
The first content businesses that get their subscription businesses going were always going to serve the wealthy and well-educated. Those people have money, and they tend to be early adopters.
This follows predictable trendlines. Remember back when everyone on the internet was an over-educated nerd? We thought it would solve all the world's problems. But then it turned out that, actually, an internet for everyone looked very different than the internet just for us?
The second wave of subscriptions (which is already swelling) is going to serve other audiences. The top earners on Patreon include both the very left, very inside its bubble "Chapo Trap House" podcast all the way to lunatic far-right QAnon conspiracies.
The mechanisms that make outrage and fear compelling for clickbait and sharing also make outrage and fear great motivators for subscriptions. Just like outrage gets more clicks than journalism, you shouldn't be surprised if, in five years, it gets more paying subscribers too.
Once behind a paywall, some of the dynamics of the internet do shift. It's harder to share the worst of your opponents if their content is locked up, and demonizing a group by pulling out their most radical opinions is an important part of how the internet tears at society.
But it also lets you ignore people outside your bubble more than ever. It allows for even greater segmentation of society, even more cultural drift. We used to have radio stations for different genres...we'll soon have different subscriptions for different realities.
When all of the current big content subscription businesses are for the wealthy and enfranchised, it's no surprised that the wealthy and enfranchised feel like subscription is solving problems. But that ignores that different audiences will be compelled by different things.
I don't have a solution for this problem. There is so much money to be made from outrage, conspiracy, and fear. All I'm asking is...let's at least not be so surprised this time. </>
