The saying goes if you’re not the customer, you’re the product. Now, you’re both. Every big social media app is testing subscriptions. It's a business model that comes with a perverse incentive. Just like airlines, if you make life worse, more people will pay.
Social media has a natural moat because what matters it what users are there. As long as social media sites don’t federate with each other, there will be an evolutionary pressure to start exploiting and get progressively worse as your users are locked-in and you can exploit them for the profit of your shareholders.
Paying improves the situation because the users are customers and not eyeballs to sell, but still – they’re there for their friends and follows. If they can’t get those same friends and follows on another site, you can screw them as hard as you like.
Maybe this will finally get people to fuck off social media. It’s toxic and good for nothing. I wish we had forums back and people would start using them again.
That lack of organization on the user side is really the killer. The best you can hope for is some organic movement like the abandonment of myspace.