[justinmk]

The "so they could serve ads" meme is facile, reductionist, sophomoric. Actually, the fact that Google et al. were able to identify a profit function that could be optimized to fund the last 15 years of technology is an incredible achievement. In ~2000 it wasn't at all obvious that the internet could find a robust funding model.

Where the funding comes from is practically irrelevant, specially if it is a feedback function (i.e., an economic phenomenon, not "phone the legislature to fund more research!!1").

New funding models are good, too, of course. But the tone of the anti-ad camp is asinine.

[zubat]

A realpolitik view of tech only holds under the assumption that any new technology is good technology. It allows nothing to balance or sustainability, and I believe the trajectory of the Web is unsustainable and therefore fundamentally doomed despite its near-term wonders.

The SV camp has said nothing to convince me otherwise.

[coldtea]

>Where the funding comes from is practically irrelevant, specially if it is a feedback function (i.e., an economic phenomenon, not "phone the legislature to fund more research!!1").

I preper phoning the legislature -- more democratic and less private interests-driven.