We should just let the market sort it out. If people don’t want to pay as much as a website needs to be run, they should just not use the website, it can go out of business if necessary, and space can be opened up for a more efficient service provider.
I mean we’re basically allowing for an information asymmetry here, right? Which messes with supply and demand. Economists should be pissed.
The juiciest model is to make content that people go nuts for, like sports, then charge $100/mo for access to it, then run ads on top of that, i.e. what Comcast / Hulu do. You want the sports, so you have no choice but to pay what they demand and watch all the awful ads. They won't sell the rights to anyone because it's such a cash cow, and they know they don't even need to offer an ad-free experience, because the whole thing is just a gimmick to shove ads and marketing down throats in the first place.
I mean we’re basically allowing for an information asymmetry here, right? Which messes with supply and demand. Economists should be pissed.