They operated at a loss just for this reason. Years of loss revenue to trick people into using the service and building a user base only to pull the rug out from under us and go ad crazy. They did this to themselves, we got used to being ad free so now they think we will just roll over and accept the ads. Too bad there wasn’t a way to sue companies for operating at a loss on purpose to artificially create a market then fundamentally change the product after the fact but as it was a “free” service there is only one stakeholder.
YouTube used to host and stream videos for free, without ads, for years.
They operated at a loss just for this reason. Years of loss revenue to trick people into using the service and building a user base only to pull the rug out from under us and go ad crazy. They did this to themselves, we got used to being ad free so now they think we will just roll over and accept the ads. Too bad there wasn’t a way to sue companies for operating at a loss on purpose to artificially create a market then fundamentally change the product after the fact but as it was a “free” service there is only one stakeholder.
“bait and switch” is the technical term.