One solution to the problem of "your users are the product" is allowing your users to buy their own ad space at a multiple of how much they are predicted to mak

One solution to the problem of "your users are the product" is allowing your users to buy their own ad space at a multiple of how much they are predicted to make you. If a user makes you $1/mo in ads then you could charge that user a multiple based on the growth rate of that income. So if they are pretty steadily using your app and clicking on ads just use a 1.5x multiplier which would be $18/yr. If their usage is growing and they are clicking on more ads then use a larger multiple, like 10x and charge them $10/mo. Once you consider these users who "buy their own ad space" as advertisers, in a way you'll start converging on making a better product for people that pay. Of course, the issues with this system is that it doesn't scale. The more users that become paying users the less data you have to predict how much you would be making on ads per user. Eventually, you would have to start guessing at that price. This downside could be averted if someone created an API that allowed companies like twitter or facebook to POST information about a user and the API would broker how much that user is worth either by algorithm or auction and the user would be given a chance to beat the top price. Just a thought.