It’s a shame people are so averse to paying for anything online. For $2-4 a month, they could ultimately get a much better experience on a social network over the long term. Mind you, people spend lots of time, sometimes hours a day, on these networks. You’d think they wouldn’t mind a small fee for them considering how much people pay for cable, Netflix, etc.
It's just the mindset that companies have given them - to rely on advertisers to fund free services.
There's so many ad based websites out there, we often think that paid websites have an ad-supported alternative. Though, the ones which don't and are exceptionally compelling will gain genuine customers.