| This is a thoughtful post. However, the issue is that these advertisements play into your hopes and fears to maximize the likelihood of getting a click from you. The fact that Google (especially) and other adtech companies are playing into your hopes and fears, by microtargeting and hoarding the most private and intimate details about your life is abusive. I have to say that I am lucky that I have a print-related disability, because I almost never need to go websites with ads. Services I get access to (no-ads): * 975,000+ books for $50/year (Bookshare.org) * 60,000+ professionally narrated audio books for free (US National Library Service) * 80,000+ volunteer narrated audio books for $135/year (LearningAlly.org) * Hundreds of Newspapers and Magazines for free (NFB Newsline) * 99% of the books posted on OpenLibrary.org for free (even books currently "borrowed") * Virtually all libraries for print-related disabilities around the world (sometimes free, sometimes paid) (I can get books in foreign languages easily) Additionally, I use the paid audio apps Blinkist, Audm, and Curio, which everyone has access to. I find them to be super helpful. Blinkist in particular is almost 100% of the time a YouTube and TED talk replacement for me. I also use The Economist app, which has the entire weekly edition professionally narrated, along with the vast majority of the rest of its material. |
Seriously though, "Imagine there was no such thing as a library, and that members of the current neoliberal policy consensus were to sit down today and invent it." https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/citizen-coup...