[Crabber]

Searching for a niche topic on an internet without advertising: 10 results of pages run by hobbyists, who care so much about their topic of interest that they are willing to pay out of their own pocket to make information available to others

Searching for a niche topic on an internet with advertising: 1000000 results of SEO spam, senseless AI generated articles, 10 minute ad-filled youtube videos, posted by people who have no intent to actually provide high quality information but just see internet users as hoards of mindless meat to show advertisements to

Which kind of internet would you rather have?

[manuelmoreale]

It sucks that the middle ground has basically been abandoned. Simple sponsor slots on niche websites that are focused on specific topics. You have a blog about bicycles with an audience? Seems the perfect space for a bicycle related company to advertise on. Work out a deal for a rate and there you go. The brand can figure out if it’s worth it based on referrals or other metrics.

I get it, it involves a lot of manual labor and it messy and it’s easier to just slap some js code and forget about it.

[nceqs3]

Searching is the key word there. Without ads, Google would be behind a paywall. Without ads, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. would also be behind paywalls.

[nobody9999]

>Without ads, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. would also be behind paywalls.

And nothing of value would be lost.