If your feed before was "tilted too fat in terms of brands" then you could easily have hidden them from the feed or unsubscribed. Your analogy is wrong. Facebo

If your feed before was "tilted too fat in terms of brands" then you could easily have hidden them from the feed or unsubscribed. Your analogy is wrong. Facebook did not write a free story about my business. I paid them to help me gather a group of people who were interested in my business. They never at any point said that I would have to pay to access those users. Then, after I spent a lot of money, time and effort maintaining that group, they told me that I couldn't access them without paying them again and again. That's extortion, not advertising. As someone who has ran a business that has sold many millions of dollars of advertising you don't screw over your readers and advertisers to make an extra buck. It might work in the short term, but it's a failing business strategy.