[bonton89]

Paying will at best temporarily stop ads, until the company wants more money and brings them back. Which we've already seen. And it will not stop aggressive user tracking at all. In fact, it will make the later worse for you on the individual level as it requires doxing yourself to pay and sorts you into the "has money" bucket which makes you a juicier target.

[Terr_]

Yeah, it's a mistake to think of this a simple "just buy an apple a different stall in the marketplace" situation, we're way past that.

To bring it towards alignment with the status-quo, every fruit-vendor would be a facet of a few massive guildhalls, with spyglasses trained down from the parapets, informants circulating in the crowd, a parchment file on everyone, etc.

[ravenstine]

On the inverse, just because a business relies on ads doesn't mean it won't start charging money for certain things.

Businesses are always changing and there are no guarantees. Some money hungry bozo might become CEO of your favorite product and enshittify it. That's just reality, and it doesn't mean that paying for things is futile. Best to avoid having too many eggs in one basket and paying for things that you can't actually own.