As with any disruptive technology, the "your enhacement ruins our business model" is really your problem, not mine.
The per-user profit of Facebook (in very fuzzy numbers) is on the order of $1-$2. Presuming there would be some feasible way of capturing this or its equivalent revenue by non-advertising means, a subscription-based service is feasible.
The real problem is that most users are subscription-averse, which has a knock-on effect of making it difficult to attain sufficient network size (and network effect value) while charging fees. Advertising has been the low-friction means to do this for the past decade or so.
An alternative model is to find a sufficient subset of users who are willing and able to pay for a service to underwrite both the remainder and the network growth effects. Craigslist would be the prime example of this. A small fraction of advertising in a small fraction of markets underwrites the remainder of the firm's activities.
Privacy is a feature, not a product. And I mean that in the literal sense, not the dismissive condescending way that people use it to describe startups they don't take seriously.
Privly is not disruptive because it doesn't remove people's desire to use Facebook. If it did manage to kill Facebook's business model, people would not be happy because it doesn't replace Facebook.
Of course this is a moot point because in general people don't care about privacy, so Privly can remain safely parasitic for the indefinite future. Eventually some major event or series of events may get people to take privacy more seriously, and in that case Privly would be well positioned for growth, but were such a sea change to occur Facebook would be the first casualty with or without Privly.
The per-user profit of Facebook (in very fuzzy numbers) is on the order of $1-$2. Presuming there would be some feasible way of capturing this or its equivalent revenue by non-advertising means, a subscription-based service is feasible.
The real problem is that most users are subscription-averse, which has a knock-on effect of making it difficult to attain sufficient network size (and network effect value) while charging fees. Advertising has been the low-friction means to do this for the past decade or so.
An alternative model is to find a sufficient subset of users who are willing and able to pay for a service to underwrite both the remainder and the network growth effects. Craigslist would be the prime example of this. A small fraction of advertising in a small fraction of markets underwrites the remainder of the firm's activities.