>In my honest opinion, I much prefer having services like Google, Youtube, Gmail, Maps, ChatGPT

I don't use any of these except YouTube (if only I could find the content elsewhere…) and I still pay for them when I purchase anything advertised on these properties because, of course, the companies advertising on Google makes all their customers pay for the free (lol) services. All advertising expenses are included in the price of the products, even if you never saw any ads.

We could easily charge for each of these services and still have them. Advertising is not necessary at all. It's just a way to make others pay for your services. It's a free riding problem to externalize costs on those who don't partake in the scheme.

Pay your share and don't call free what others will subsidize. Unless if a public service and we collectively agree on the split (vote and taxes, which we can debate publicly)

Right. But a good portion of the world can't afford the premium and having access to these services is still valuable. For every broke student or someone from a poor background, who probably don't make any money for the company (due to not buying advertised stuff), there's someone from a well off background, who will more than subsidize it by virtue of clicking on a lawyer ad (or whatever)

Nowadays I'm happy to pay, but that wasn't always the case. And I personally think that having an ad tier and fee tier is fine. Serves everyone

I’ve thought if they ban car commercials and truck ads, the price would go down. How much is an open question? Would they actually want to drop the cost?