alt Hacker NewsI am conflicted because to some extent, paying for some of these services feels like paying a blackmailer, spying on you, holding a whole ecosystem hostage and even jeopardising mental health and the public discourse.
I pay for email and some other services. Some other services, not so much. I find it hard to support some companies financially because I don't agree with their basic modus operandi. It's not the money; it's who it goes to.
If only we could convince large crowds to choose more free alternatives.
To be devil's advocate, this is the kind of all-talk argument the parent was referring to. Once the paid option is available, people will demand it to be [cheaper / better / someone else] and still not pay.
While I don't love my money going to Google, I find YouTube's overall quality astronomically higher than Instagram/Twitter/TikTok/etc. and the amount of censorship/"moderation"/controversy has been relatively limited. When I find something I really want to keep I have always been able to download it without much trouble.