[arrosenberg]

Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy. Ads force people to pay with their attention span, which seems to have serious consequences - the user is suffering from attention deficit far more than an imagined lack of content.

[paulcole]

Well if money isn’t exchanged for the service of content (in some way), the content eventually goes away. The lack of content stops being imaginary.

[immibis]

Cool. Let me pay $20/month for an ad-free Internet (not just one site). I already have Youtube Premium.

[paulcole]

This is like saying "Cool. Let me pay $10,000 for a Ferrari. I already have a tricycle."

[immibis]

I suspect YouTube alone makes up the majority of my casual browsing data volume.

You could even make it $100/month if you wanted.

[account42]

That content is only ever produced out of monetary motivations is the biggest lie capitalism has sold us.

[nkozyra]

> Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy.

Sounds like advertising meets that description.

It's a transaction of value - potential future customers via the service of advertising.

[diffeomorphism]

Sounds like it doesn't and you missed the point. There are two parties that matter: the reader and the website.

Instead of addressing that you introduced a third party, which works for the website as a service. Correct, but irrelevant.

[arrosenberg]

It does not. Attention is a limited good, not capital. Capital is capital.

[nkozyra]

You've changed your definition.

Advertising is a service, it is fundamentally no different than any other service. We may find it annoying or distasteful, but it is a natural good from natural actors in a capitalist system.

[arrosenberg]

Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system. What a ridiculous idea. Advertising is a service, it should be paid for with capital, not used as a subsidy or alternate form of payment.

[nkozyra]

> Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system

You're looking at the wrong thing as capital and the wrong thing as the service.

The service is customer sourcing and the capital is literally capital.

It is a very natural capitalist creation, self-evidently so.

[arrosenberg]

I don't think I am. Internet users are not being fairly compensated for their data and unless you block the entire Facebook and Instagram namespaces, they track you whether or not you have consented.

The platforms are acting like feudal landlords, not capitalists.