Here is how platforms die:
first, they are good to their users;
then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers;
finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.
Then, they die.
Paywalled subs existed for ages already. If you had Premium or whatever it was called you could access them. It was mostly uninteresting stuff going on there.
I remember getting premium once (got a few days for free for some reason) and I think the only "premium" sub was r/lounge or whatever and it was just people saying they got premium.