@pluralistic I still think it’s a useful truism. Why do you think your new favorite search engine, Kagi, works so well? Aligned incentives play a big part there.
Bigness and consequent monopolization being the larger overarching cause of enshittification doesn’t preclude paid products from being fundamentally more user-aligned than ads-driven ones with obfuscated profit incentives.
You’re not NOT the product if you pay for it either, but it’s a more transparent exchange, which matters.