| I think instead of trying to fix advertising, we should continue to work towards better monetization strategies. Fixing advertising is an uphill battle, and while I do think there is such a thing as positive advertising, I see that way too rarely to justify all the downsides of advertising. Targeted ads are still bad 95% of the time, which is hardly better than content based ads, if not worse. The current alternative is, for the most part, subscription services. The problem with these is that the number of websites I visit within a given month is just massive compared to the tiny fraction of sites I use frequently enough to warrant at least considering paying $5 a month or whatever. That leaves efforts like Brave/BAT that look to create an automated solution to get the best of both worlds, which can be a step in the right direction, if done right. There is also the option to use site A to onboard people for site/service B in a natural manner. The Backblaze reports which regularly make it to the front page of HN being one example of that. Merch shops from Youtubers and streamers being another. Obviously, that is not applicable for most websites. Coming up with better strategies really is the only long term solution to improve the situation. |