There's nothing inherently wrong with advertising. But if the business model is trade users and their data for advertising revenue, there's no chance that the u

There's nothing inherently wrong with advertising. But if the business model is trade users and their data for advertising revenue, there's no chance that the users' best interest can be served. That said, as someone working on social technology where we've expressly decided to not go down that path, it's also clear that the dark patterns that an ad-driven approach lead to are also effective at driving growth. I'm curious how many people will pay rather than have their data collected and sold. My guess is that it takes more than just being ethical to charge for social tech, it takes adding extra value as a product as well. I'm betting my current career on the idea that there is an alternative.