[tomp]

> Bitcoin should pay the way for a paid-for internet.

Simple economics tells you that this will never happen. Companies simply have much more money to spend than consumers do.

Indeed, if you ban “ads”, companies will simply invest in “non-ads” to influence your behaviour - fake news, real news (more-or-less thinly veiled PR disguised as news, a la Paul Graham’s “submarine”) or buying whole news outfits (hint hint Bezos).

The only way to stop competition in marketing is to (re-)start competition in product / technology - but that seems a very difficult problem (we’re in the midst of a physics/tech stagnation).