Well, yes, but that's also part of the appeal. Introducing a financial incentive often ruins things.

Sure thing. On the other hand, workers, families, do not run on free water. For any venture to be more than a nighttime hobby, it needs financial backing.

Perfectly fair — I’d argue in favor of modest, sustainable goals and no lock in, but I imagine that’ll scare off backers.

It just as often improves things

Are we any better for the impacts of social media and closed platforms? The owners of said platforms are richer, but I’d argue society is often worse off.

I think youtube has been a net good. The content today is far greater than the content in 2005 or 2008 mostly due to the financial incentives.

The barriers to advertising have been lowered and we've seen a ton of small business growth from social media platforms like instagram, tiktok. Sure there are some cringe trends but to me they pale in comparison to the millions of people that have been enabled to make a living doing what they genuinely love.