[phailhaus]

That has nothing to do with ads, that has to do with monetization. Every site needs to be monetized somehow. Ads scale with engagement, so engagement becomes optimized. Any monetization scheme that scales with engagement will have this issue.

[xp84]

So, a flat-rate subscription would not have that issue.

[LexiMax]

Something Awful was ahead of the curve by charging $10 for access.

[phailhaus]

Yes. Nobody has figured out how to get people to pay for social networks though, at scale. The free ones destroy the competition.