I fled cable because of advertising and prices.

I fled traditional newspapers because they were no longer needed, and their prices, and have not paid for one since then in any form. There are many facets to the shittiness of the newspaper industry, but IIRC they seemed to think they didn't need to worry about their old business model until it was too late.

Same for magazines, although I generally view them more favorably than either of the others or Discord - and some magazines have very much been criticized over the years for being far too much advertising for the value/content they provided.

The underlying point is - when you are the only game in town, as discord currently de-facto is (as cable once was, and as newspapers and magazines once were), you can treat your users like shit. To a point. There are already other options, and people already don't enjoy the experience. Giving users a choice of "pay us or we'll make it even shittier" is going to end exactly like those others.

Platforms should be free to do whatever they want and consumers are free to react.

I just want to reiterate again, I haven't called for banning of anything. My reaction is to call out that they are taking a shitty product and making it shittier. Their own greed will hasten their demise. (Like cable, at a minimum.)

various edits due to typos etc