> The other option is that people would pay to use Reddit or Twitter. But they would lose 90% of their users if they took that route, because what they do does

> The other option is that people would pay to use Reddit or Twitter. But they would lose 90% of their users if they took that route, because what they do does not provide enough value that a typical user would pay for it. I see this repeated all the time but I've never seen any evidence cited to support it. Also, 90% of the users leaving when the site switches to a paid model doesn't necessarily mean the quality of the site or their profitability will go down. I'd pay a pretty hefty monthly fee for most of the social media sites that I've now stopped using as a result of their heavy handed strategies to maximize ad revenue. Also, since when did we start deciding how much value a thing could potentially provide to an individual? Isn't that what "the free market" is supposed to sort out?