[MichaelMcG]

Exactly, a segment of social media users don't mind or are largely apathetic to the advertising/data collection because it keeps the platforms free--that's all that matters to them.

The advertisers are effectively the customer, with the social media platform acting as a vehicle to reach the willing end-user.

With this model, a polished & efficient dashboard/UI for advertiser engagement is as important (if not more important) than the front-end experience that provides end-user engagement.

[nerdponx]

I am sympathetic to the free-but-ad-supported model. This is how we get Reddit, Stackoverflow, and Google Maps which is a fucking global map and GPS with much better navigation quality than any of its predecessors and it costs exactly $0 to the end user.

It might be the case that there is simply not enough subscription revenue in the world to fund such an operation without advertising. People forget just how much objectively good and useful stuff we have access to because of ad-supported $0 products. Hell, you could argue that Tensorflow and PyTorch themselves are ad-supported products.

The sticking point is that your old ad-supported classifieds paper and network news channels weren't surveilling you across the Web.

And as much as I think we need strict data privacy laws, it's hard to ignore the fact that Facebook ads used to be for penis pills and karate scams, but now for the most part are things that I (or at least my demographic) might want to buy.