Yup, agree totally. Only way it can work is if the org running it is a not for profit with great transparency, which hopefully is what we will see with the likes of Lemmy etc.

There is an argument to make that things like reddit or even Facebook (original fb, not what it is now) should be publicly owned services. They CAN provide value to society, similar to how a town hall can.

I don’t really understand this sentiment, I’d rather pay a subscription for a service like fb / insta / reddit than have ads and my identity sold to the highest bidder.

Social networks are expensive to run, the idea they should be “free” is half the problem.

Though of course the enterprises behind them make far more money through advertising and mining user data than they would through a subscription model.