If people demanded ad-free paid services with the same vigor that they evangelize ad-blocking, we would have it.

I don't really get why that's the responsibility of the consumer? Businesses offer shitty deal, consumer works around said deal... it's on the businesses to offer a better deal (a la Spotify vs limewire, or Netflix vs thepiratebay)

People don't work around the shitty deal, businesses work around the shitty consumers.

That's in large part why the Internet sucks, it's not made for people who ad-block.

YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music, Kagi etc etc

I would submit that maybe the first one qualifies as a social media network

My mistake, I thought the discussion was about online services in general.

Mastodon

That's somewhat apples and oranges. Mastodon-the-software is free-as-in-AGPL, but most instances are funded by donations. I don't know of very many instances that offer explicitly paid subscription (in order to keep their interests aligned with their customers)

so? donate