Understood, and I agree that most users will be part of the race to the bottom. It has been encouraging, however, watching more and more creative people switch

Understood, and I agree that most users will be part of the race to the bottom. It has been encouraging, however, watching more and more creative people switch to a direct relationship with their fans and basically doubling their ad-based income when only a small fraction of their audience signs up. If 1% of your audience pays you about the same as the revenue from the other 99% through ads, there might be alternative models that can work. Not massively scalable ones, mind, but ones that can still provide a sustainable living without turning the user and creator into the product. I am holding out for those platforms. In the meantime, I directly sign up with the people I like, and I avoid feeding the beast, trivial as I am.