[hagbardgroup]

Yes, we can.

Private roads have no ads. Expensive neighborhoods have no ads. You won't see many ads on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Expensive HOAs ban lawn signs. You can pay extra for the ad-free Kindle from Amazon. If you buy books, the books are ad-free. Expensive newsletters are ad-free. Pay per view movies are ad-free (except when they have products inserted surreptitiously into the content on behalf of advertisers).

Are you seeing the pattern, here? You get to pick two from this set: cheap, good, fast. If it's cheap and fast, it'll be bad. If it's good and cheap, it'll take a long time. If it's fast and good, it won't be cheap.

Plenty of people -- the majority, really -- want lower prices in return for submitting to brain-scrambling.

[eevilspock]

So, a two class system. The poor get by (taken advantage of is more like it) by submitting to "brain-scrambling". The rich get rich thorough said brain-scrambling. Excellent!

Not to mention it is utter bullshit that ads make things cheaper or free: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773. So much for your "pattern".

EDIT (since I can't reply to hagbardgroup at this thread depth): You didn't really read the link and the argument why it doesn't make anything free or cheaper (think about where the advertisers get their money that they pay Facebook), in fact the opposite. Ok, here is the same argument in different words: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237

[hagbardgroup]

It does make things cheaper -- whether in time or money.

I don't get it how your statement about Facebook's customers not being the users isn't consistent with the idea that it's 'free.'

Everything costs resources. Facebook isn't 'free.' You use Facebook in return for allowing Facebook to spy on you on behalf of their customers, and give those customers chances to influence you through various forms of media.

There are plenty of communications alternatives which are more private and expensive. Phone companies offer various tiers of paid service. There are tons of messaging apps that permit you to mass message people. You can send electronic mail to anyone in the world. Whoa! So many options!

Facebook is pure frippery, and most people's lives can be improved by quitting the service in the same way that unsubscribing from Publisher's Clearinghouse improves people's lives.

However, plenty of people are willing to give up their attention in return for low price entertainment. People can go to the movie theater for $10, or they can spend two hours clicking Buzzfeed for $0 and two hours. Advertisers pay Buzzfeed's bills so they can remind those readers to buy more tacos from Taco Bell. It costs the advertiser maybe $0.03 per page view for that user owing to Buzzfeed's excellent rates -- so a cool $0.60 for a 20-listicle binge.

The readers spent two hours, but plenty of people are willing to make that trade. Others aren't.

Free web services need advertisers way, way, way, way more than advertisers need those free services. If those web services can no longer provide value to advertisers, then those web services will need to start charging users rather than advertisers to fund the service. Else, you can lobby the government to fund GovernmentBook -- hopefully with co-located servers in that Utah data farm. Then, taxpayers will pay for a continually degrading monopoly service, and you'll get government ads instead of commercial ones. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.