[Bakary]

Your money is also a data sequence on the internet, but you might miss it if it were gone.

I don't necessarily see a problem with looking at things this way, but the end result is that we have extremely powerful adtech companies, the deterioration of journalism (not that it was great to begin with), predatory business models, an attention economy, harder lives for artists, otherwise great projects killed, etc.

I'm aware that this was all inevitable, and I am pretty stingy myself when it comes to online material, but my point is that there is a cost to pay at the macro level. By definition, if you enjoy a type of material and aren't paying for it and use adblocking software, someone else is paying for it, whether it's the creator themselves or some overarching entity or some other aficionado. If you want to freeload in a way that is unsustainable if everyone does it, whilst enjoying a great diversity of material, that's unfortunate.

On a more positive note, I'd say donation systems such as Kickstarter or Patreon or Substack have come a long way

[trevyn]

There are plenty of data sequences that people create for their own reasons, and then intentionally give away.

I would have no problem if all other data sequences were no longer created.