this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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I wonder why none of us paid subscriptions to access websites in the 90s and early 2000s? We all used MySpace, FB, LiveJournal, Make Out Club, Hot or Not, Geocities, Angelfire, NeoPets, MSN messenger, AOL messenger, the millions of chat rooms. Etc etc. We paid for time on the internet itself (like we still do) but at least then you could find one of those AOL CD ROMs with free minutes just about anywhere. You couldn't escape them.
There also weren't that many ads, just some banners at the top. There were web rings and stuff to advertise each other's sites. But it seems like once pop-up ads started, you couldn't get rid of them ever again. There weren't browser extensions or anything, pretty much just anti virus software you had to go to Frys to buy.
The answer to your question is those were unsustainable business models, and thats also why they failed.
To my point, cell phone games are a perfect example. Free to play games all fucking suck now, and nobody wants to pay for games so much, so developers don't really focus on paid games, just paid upgrades, and promo packs etc.
I say all this, but I also recognize Freeware was basically pay to play/dlc also, and i loved the freeware method.