Pedantically, that's not how cost per user works. Whether you have a billion users or 3, $2.50 / user is $2.50 per user.
And that infrastructure costs the same whether you riddle the platform with advertising and influence, or leave it pristine. In fact, leaving it pristine costs far far less to society, all things considered.
Anyway, 'at scale', $2.5 bn is a drop in the ocean. There are thousands of people who could pay that all on their own. The global economy is 100 trillion dollars (as of 2021). And there's this thing called taxation, which sorts out public goods and services (such as communication) at scale.
Youtube gives you the option. Do you want no ads? Pay for Youtube Premium. I do not need to engage in a hostile user vs platform agaisnt Youtube, with me searching for better adblocks, and youtube trying to figure out how to block the adblockers, cause they go and give me the option. I doubt that reddit would be getting the pushback they are getting if they had come out with some sensible numbers per user, that people are actually ok with paying.
The problem there is I think people are sick of seeing 15 small recurring charges on their credit card statements every month. It's death by a thousand paper cuts.
There needs to be some sort of universal pay per view model that works across any site.
And that infrastructure costs the same whether you riddle the platform with advertising and influence, or leave it pristine. In fact, leaving it pristine costs far far less to society, all things considered.
Anyway, 'at scale', $2.5 bn is a drop in the ocean. There are thousands of people who could pay that all on their own. The global economy is 100 trillion dollars (as of 2021). And there's this thing called taxation, which sorts out public goods and services (such as communication) at scale.