I think that abrowne’s comment is certainly valid—and it gets at the crux of perhaps the best (only?) argument against experimentation with paid premium tiers:

I think that abrowne’s comment is certainly valid—and it gets at the crux of perhaps the best (only?) argument against experimentation with paid premium tiers: it’ll work. If these companies are raking in billions off of [choose your spin: up-selling/extorting] millions of Americans, there’s a likely insurmountable degree of institutional incentive and inertia towards maintaining the status quo as it relates to U.S. privacy protections, eliminating any hope of regulatory intervention to raise baseline protections for all Americans. His/her comment also illuminates the most substantive tangible risk to a company that chooses to experiment with paid premium tiers—as alluded to above, the issue is highly sensitive to framing, and the program’s reception hinges substantially on how it’s presented and marketed from the outset. It would require only the slightest of ornamental alterations and no change whatsoever in substance to recolor the very same proposition as “a cynical extortion and profiteering scheme—and perverse defilement of the fundamental human right to privacy—intended only to line the coffers of America’s wealthiest corporations at the expense of its poorest and most vulnerable citizens.” Indeed, mental gymnastics aren’t necessary to achieve a cognitive dissonance of diametric proportions on this issue—a mere logical tiptoe will suffice to traverse the universe.