[doug-moen]

Advertising was originally illegal on the internet. It was for non-profit activities only (university and industrial research and educational activities). When the world wide web first deployed in 1989, web advertising was illegal. The rules changed some time in the early 1990's.

I do remember a major scandal that occurred in the 1980's when somebody posted an advertisement to usenet. At the time, there was a lot of online discussion about why this was prohibited. I looked this up, and found that the internet backbone (the NSFNET) was funded by the NSF, who enforced an acceptable-use policy, prohibiting Backbone use for purposes “not in support of research and education.” [https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/253671.253741]

So yes, it's possible, because we already did it once.

[p3rls]

Noted non-commercial entities like AT&T, HP and IBM were among the first owners (renters) of 2nd level domains on .com (for commercial) in the mid-80s though. These rules have always been murky and mostly used to beat down those of us without lawyers on retainer while established players will do whatever they want.

[hedayet]

I’d love to have an ad-free internet, sure. But simply introducing regulations won’t make that happen. There’s too much money in advertising to stop it, and that money can fund an alternative, ad-supported internet that could offer a significantly superior experience: FOR FREE!

When we talk about banning ads, we tend to underestimate the power of capitalism and consumerism, while overestimating how much people truly value the privacy of their online privacy.