This is the largest damage in my opinion. How many thousands, millions of hours of some of the most brilliant minds of our generations have we dedicated to making the experience of lived daily life worse? Ads are a scourge upon the actual usability and safety of the internet. I understand the current necessity of the economics, it doesn't change the fact that the web without ads is an infinitely more pleasant and self-paced place without all the flashing imagery and psychological subterfuge surrounding every single piece of useful information you could ever find.
This massive wealth of intelligence, drive, ambition, all spent on something as useless as banner ads everyone explicitly tries to ignore or block anyway. It's insane. But money is the primordial force that allows the planet to keep rotating so inevitably someone will dedicate their intelligence to whatever cheap money they come up with. That's fine, that's good. I just imagine all that money could've cured some diseases, built better telescopes, put more powerful technology in the hands of the disadvantaged, maybe even, i dunno, fed some hungry people or something. What the fuck is the metaverse gonna do for anyone besides exploit them for maximum profit driven by distraction
