Yes the entirety of web2.0 has been a bait & switch scheme. No one can actually afford to just serve the platform, ads don't generate enough leads to make up for the cost of running them, and the average person can't afford to pay a $5-10 subscription for each web service they have grown accustomed to using every day.
You realize that it’s not “just a few dollars” right? Where I live, it’s as much as a cable TV subscription without the cable TV.
Second, the entire reason they have those insane costs is because they got rid of the competition. Doing this at smaller scales is not nearly as expensive per user.
