And at this point the free market can’t resolve this. The spyware model has absolutely ruined the internet economy. There is no way to compete against a spyware company with a paid product.
Objectively ads have added more money into the internet economy than ever before. Curious where you're getting your numbers. 20 years ago "YouTuber" wasn't even a profession. The idea some rando with a microphone and a camera could make millions was unheard of. It's only possible with ads.
That is why we have subject matter experts providing guidance for people in a world too complex to grasp or even care about everything they have to deal with. People _shouldn't have to care_, as long as they can trust on those experts to do the right things. We're the experts. Advertising companies are ruining the internet for everyone, some people are just too unaware to realise it.
Sounds like projection. Though I'd agree that most internet users don't like ads, what's true is that most internet users don't like paying for things. Using YouTube as an example, the most popular site on the internet, the vast majority of people do not pay for YouTube premium even though it's available.
At the end of the day no one is stopping you from going back to circa-2000s internet, using IRC, going on plain text websites, using BBS, etc.
I think the idea that people would be able to even make this decision themselves is too optimistic.
> Objectively ads have added more money into the internet economy than ever before
Is that good though? Is there some actual value being created by this or is it simply that ad money has been flowing out of other places like print and TV, and into online advertising?
One, a children’s toy that sells for $9.99. The other a very similar children’s toy that uses lead paint, instead of a safer paint, but is otherwise very similar. It is not clearly labeled as having lead paint. The lead paint toy sells for $4.99.
If people buy the cheaper toy, does that mean people are “choosing” lead paint over the more expensive toy? No! It means people are unaware of the lead paint, or are unaware of the dangers of lead to children.
Lead paint has very obvious, bodily harm to children. Do ads harm children? Perhaps, but even if they did, there's no cost to visit a free-site without ads, or pay for a site without ads.
Because it spells out the nature of the non-paying option as spyware.
The group that is against ads including images on the sides of buses (basically the argument is usually something along the lines of that it encourages unnecessary consumption or similar) is so small as to be irrelevant. You should consider "ads" in the context of this discussion to be "bad ads", where the limit for what constitutes "bad" is of course different from person to person, but for the sae of discussion assume it is "bad enough".
