[xg15]

But the thing is that you're just sending me code. The thing that is executing the code (rendering the website) is software and hardware that I supposedly own. So I think it's reasonable to expect that those work in my interest and not in the interest of the website.

[LunaSea]

They are since you are able to read the article which wouldn't be possible without the ad.

[xg15]

It's perfectly possible to view the article without the ad if I use an adblocker.

[LunaSea]

No, because the article wouldn't have been written without the ads.

[traverseda]

I'm okay with that. I can't help but think the internet was better when it was mostly unpaid hobbyists and personal blogs without commercial interests.

The problem is that people are using their ad budget to compete with free content, but the free content is still going to be there it will just appear higher up in the search results if various bad actors aren't paying for a bunch of SEO.

[LunaSea]

> but the free content is still going to be there

Debatable.

For tech content this might be true but for general news, investigative journalism, reporters, etc. that probably won't be the case as the activity itself implies fixed costs.

[bmn__]

That's false. Perhaps the author would not have bothered to write the article without securing economic compensation of some form, but advertisement is not the only possibility.

[LunaSea]

That is incorrect. Most people don't pay for content.

You can see how well donation links work on content sites and open source projects for proof.

[concordDance]

Most people do pay. E.g. Netflix or whatever.

I personally pay $50/month on Patreon to various makers.

[nonameiguess]

I guarantee you no important information is going to go totally unreported anywhere, even if ads ceased to exist globally tomorrow.

On the other hand, a whole lot of recycled content mills where all the $0.05/paragraph contract writers are about to be replaced by GPT-4 probably would.