Perfectly Imperfect

The Center for Human Technology advocates for a change to the business models of technology companies, as part of its “Leverage Points for Changing a System.” As part of the change, an example is given in which technology companies can create subscription plans with different tiers – much like a streaming service – for access to a social media platform.

In other words, a paywall should be placed on social media sites.

I wholeheartedly agree that in order to change how humans interact with social media, the platforms must change the methods and manners in which they operate. But adding a paywall would be of no – or even worse – effect.

YouTube has a premium version which blocks ads. Social media users, however, laughably joke that they would rather wait to skip a 5 second ad than pay. Twitter recently introduced a pricing model, due to Elon Musk’s handling of the platform, furthering its downfall (but that’s a discussion for another time).

Think of the news sites of major newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others. All of these sites have paywalls. A majority of members in our society, due to these, get their news in other ways, the most predominant being (you guessed it) social media. The paywall for reputable sites rerouted users to platforms hosting misinformation and disinformation instead – an opposite effect than intended.

Would requiring payment to use more popular sites, such as Instagram and Snapchat, change user attention? In my mind, just like news sites, it would have an opposite effect.

I have a premium subscription to Spotify, because I love music, and want to listen to the songs I want, when I want to listen to them. Honestly, I am using the service as I write this post.

Now, hypothetically, assume that the premium version of Spotify had always been free. This would mean that users would be familiar with listening to what they want to by impulse, without the interruption of ads. 

Then, one day, say Spotify decided to make its service a subscription plan. No free version available. There would be different tiers, allowing different levels of access, with the priciest version being the no ad, listen-to-what-you-want style users have always been familiar with.

Users would automatically gravitate towards the highest priced plan. In their mind, the company took something that mattered to them, and they will do what they must to get it back.

In my mind, this is the exact scenario which would play out if we added a subscription model to social media sites.

People will continue using the service, even if it costs them, because their attention has been grabbed by the platform. Not to mention that social media would be made inaccessible to people who could no longer be able to afford to participate in the public square.

By adding paywalls, humanity would not only further the attention problem, but also pay the companies even more money in doing so.