i think the goal of any social media website is to not be a subscription based model. People will always ask "what am I really paying for?". because if I have to pay to be a regular user, I wouldn't use steemit (or any version of it).

I need to think about this a bit more, but another model (such as those employed by credit card companies) is the "pay per transaction" model, except the transaction cost is born by the seller and not the buyer. Of course its one half dozen or another, someone needs to pay at the end of the day.