Same reason that BBC Worldwide does.

The same reason the postal service does. They still have to pay the bills.

I could see Facebook and Google move to a subscription-style model. People would easily pay, say, 3$ per month for Facebook and 5$ per month for Google if it was the only option. (Prices should be lower in less developed regions, of course.)

Once freed from the prime directive of collecting increasing amounts of data to improve ad tracking, operating and development costs should be much lower than they are now, too.

> People would easily pay, say, 3$ per month for Facebook and 5$ per month for Google if it was the only option

If people had to pay a monthly fee for search or social media, it would very quickly not be the only option anymore

Where would you prefer the funding to come from?