[lopis]

I often see this argument that if we'd all pay for services like Facebook, they wouldn't have to charge.

Let me offer a counterpoint: if there is money on the table, corporations will get it. Example, you pay for cable, and still get ads. You pay for Netflix and still get Netflix ads in the app. All paid aps harvest and sell your behaviour data. Greed does not permit that money be left on the table.

[hackideiomat]

There are companies that try to align their incentives with the customers incentives by using a certain business model. I pay $25 for a search engine, that costs way less than operating netflix. I would be very shocked if they actually abuse the data they shouldn't collect on me. My point being, this only applies to very big coorps. There are companies that (at least claim to) care about privacy and do not sell off their users.

[lopis]

Well of course. If they sell you a specific product and then don't deliver, then there wasn't money on the table, that's just lying.