[probably_wrong]

If advertising were to disappear overnight, I'd argue the internet would go on.

First, there was an internet before there were ads. When there's a need there's a way and BitTorrent and Napster taught us that P2P is feasible when the users care about it.

Then there's the issue of competitive advantage. If the newspaper from the next town over has a website then my local newspaper has to have a website too. So the incentives would switch from "I'll finance this service with ads" to "this website costs money but that's another cost of doing business".

And finally, people do pay for services. Patreon and Wikipedia are examples where a bunch of users provide the funds for those who can't/won't pay for a service.

Would all services survive? No. And it would certainly be a different experience. But I believe an internet driven by a mixture of fans and sensible economic strategy wouldn't be a bad thing.

[sanswork]

There wasn't really an internet before ads though.

p2p is feasible but you still need someone to produce the content that you're trading between yourselves.

[jjav]

> There wasn't really an internet before ads though.

You must be very young, or have forgotten?

The Internet (and the Web also) existed well before ads. Advertising (all commercial use) was forbidden.

The Internet existed and was much better. All content was from people who cared about it, not because they were exploiting you for ads. The glory days of the Internet was before ads were legal.

[sanswork]

I don't know how old you are so I may be very young but I'm in my 40s and was on the internet in the early 90s and it was covered in ads then. It was about as early as you could get on the internet and not be part of a university or government contractor. You believe the glory days of the internet were the 70s and 80s?