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Yes, people hate to pay. Like 'Eliezer said once, paying literally feels like losing hit points in a video game. Still, I think we should accept it. My proposed solution is bit unpopular, but it goes like this: just have people pay actual money. Now, this would cause a lot of the present Internet to disappear, and I say good riddance. Here is why. The Internet is mostly made of two kinds of people: 1) those who publish stuff pro bono, as a hobby or a service to their fellow Internet citizens, and 2) those who publish stuff in order to earn money. If we switched to ad-free, direct-payment-required Internet, here's what I believe would happen: - People posting stuff pro bono will still post stuff pro bono, still paying the costs out of their own wallets. That content will mostly remain, and will remain free. - Businesses that also publish something will start treating publishing as a marketing expense, and that content will also remain free. - The rest of money-earners will try to switch to a subscription model. Those providing actual value will succeed, and people will pay for their publishing directly. As for the rest, there will be carnage, and they'll disappear from the Internet, no longer profitable. Because this literally affects the most worthless (from consumer's POV) kind of publishing, we'll all be better off without it, and the people involved will have an opportunity to find a more socially useful way of earning a living. - The adtech industry will collapse, which would be a huge win for freedom and privacy on-line. Now there's one bad side of this solution that comes to my mind: this privileges people with money to spare. Currently, even though we are drowning in sewage that masquerades as content, people without any spending money (like e.g. teenagers) can access disproportionately big amount of quality information (after they sift through the refuse, of course). I know I personally benefited from that when I was younger. I don't know how to handle this particular case; but overall, I still feel the tradeoff is worth it. |
What you just said: "Here's what I would do: I would make a perfect world. How? That's for you to figure out."
How would you get rid of ads? If you can't answer that, the best you can do is write a fiction book.