I think Google has already shown that in the long run, people accept ads and prefer them to paying a subscription fee. If that weren’t true, then YouTube Premium would have double-digit % of youtube users and Kagi Search would be huge.
Right but it is widely acknowledged that despite acceptance (we lack other options) this process eventually degrades the quality of the tool as successive waves of product managers decide “just a little bit more advertisement”.
The problem that providers like Youtube have with the "pay to remove ads" model is that the people with enough disposable income that they're willing to pay $14/month to remove ads are the same demographic of people that advertisers are willing to pay the most to show ads to. It's the same reason why if you watch TV during the middle of the day, the ads are all for medicine (paid for by your insurance), personal injury attorneys, (paid for by the person you're suing), and cash advances for structured settlements (i.e. if you already have a settlement paying $500/mo for 30 years but you'd rather have $20,000 now) rather than for anything you actually have to buy.
What will coca cola pay me to sign a contract where I drink nothing but coca cola for this year under penalty of imprisonment? Think I can crack six figs?
It is not a choice between ads or subscription. The choice is between ads, adblockers or subscriptions. Hardly anyone will pay the subscription when they have a free way or blocking the ads. It is wild that an AI company is banking on ad funded, when the second major use of the tech will be to block ads entirely. Even in the physical world when AR tech is good enough. Now that is a use for the AI chip on my next PC that I can get behind.
The difference here is the qualitative difference that has existed between Google Search results and other competitors. Switching away from Google Search is a high friction move for most people. I'm not sure the same goes for AI chat.
