I think it would be a pretty horrible thing if all these once free internet services suddenly cost money. Nobody seems to be thinking about the significant amount of people who wouldn't be able to afford monthly subscriptions to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. even if it did all add up to "only" $15/month. Poor people should not be priced out of the online spaces where modern discourse happens. Single mothers should not be priced out of getting to post baby pictures on Facebook. I think it's indicative of living in bubbles that nobody else seems to be giving this consideration any weight.

Currently the price we all collectively pay for these “free” services is a decrease in the sanity of public discourse. Is that really a better option?

How would subscription fees improve the discourse on social media sites?

Currently, social media users are the goods being sold, so the companies running the networks don’t have much interest in offering tools and algorithms for high quality discussion. With paying customers the situation would be very different. (Not that it’s going to happen – I’m just saying that we already pay a hefty price for the “free” services.)

If I had to test that hypothesis I would consider the comments section on the NYT (a website that requires a subscription to access more than 10 articles a month). Just checking the comments section there shows that people are just as vitriolic there _even_ if they've posted on more than 10 articles that month.

I'm comfortable saying that paid networks won't in-and-of-themselves improve conversation.

What this bill might help (or at least give law enforcement additional tools to prosecute with) is preventing situations like the Cambridge Analytica situation, where corporations with nefarious motives gather user profile information from social media in questionable ways, and use these tools to try to manipulate in areas outside of mere marketing.

In other words, while I'm not sure if this will improve discourse, at least it mitigates a little bit of the questionable social media meddling that we've seen of late.

I kind of see jimmaswell's point that there is a risk of creating a "tiered Internet". But I'm not sure it's completely an either/or situation. It sounds like that the bill also emphasizes more transparency on what is being done with the data and who it is sold to. As long as personal data is not shared haphazardly and in a leaky fashion, consumers might be just fine with the bargain they get.

Things like shopper loyalty programs already offer this sort of bargain: in exchange for allowing companies access to more granular shopper information, the shopper gets access to greater discounts. Loyalty programs currently are subject to various consumer protection rules. In contrast, the bargain social media has struck with users (free service in exchange for marketing data) is not well protected.

Personally, I'm fine with a little more transparency and disclosure in this fashion. I don't think this necessarily means the end of free social media per se. (I will say though that this is a sign, one of many, that the days of social media "moving fast and breaking things" is over.)

Given "the discourse" currently includes inflammatory crap by bots pulling people's strings, even a small monetary barrier to entry might slow that down.

They could still be freemium, or could use less targeted advertising. Would it be a catastrophe if Mark Zuckerberg only made $20B off Facebook instead of $40B?

Also, today, privacy conscious users are cut off from the main forums of discourse. Is that better?

People who refuse to use these services out of privacy concerns are still a fringe minority.

I would expect it to drive monopolization, since you now have to have resources and competency in yet another thing. Seems like it would be harder on incumbents.

EDIT: since people are downvoting this, I should clarify that I’m not advocating against the policy, it just doesn’t seem intuitive to me that this policy would reduce monopolization (data privacy may well be worth the tradeoff). If I’m wrong I’d love to be corrected!