[imiric]

The ad industry eventually ruins any medium it touches, and is responsible for spreading misinformation and propaganda that have killed millions.

It ruined print when every other newspaper and magazine page had an ad mixed in with the content. Sure you could get the paper for free, but how much content are you actually reading?

It ruined television when an hour-long show is interrupted several times to show 15 minutes of ads.

And now it's ruining the web with the advent of ad tech and the brilliant minds that get paid millions to think of new ways of squeezing more value out of people's attention. Web sites are riddled with ads now even worse than in the popup days. I have to navigate a legal minefield of dark patterns to ask them to please not track me or sell my data.

These are just the ways it ruins content and user experience. What about the misinformation? The lies from the tobacco industry, the political ads that overturn democracies, astroturfing and embedded marketing...? The list of shady and downright evil practices is too long to mention.

Advertising is a scourge on humanity. It needs to be strongly regulated and companies as influential as Google and Facebook need to switch to user respecting business models, for the sake of all of us.