[epidemian]

I really can't believe that someone who frequents Hacker News can ask this question.

If by any chance this is a legit question, i feel the answer would be too obvious: asking people, googling, going to a store you think could sell the thing you want, etc. There are many many pretty obvious ways of finding out about stuff, without needing to have a corporation "reach out" to me and shove their shit everywhere in the form of ads.

[epidemian]

And, just to expand a bit on this, what i find puzzling about the stance of "how will you find out about stuff without ads" is that it goes totally contrary to my contemporary experience.

Nowadays, when i want to find out about something, i don't just query Google about it, i usually make sure to add "site:reddit.com" to that query, precisely to avoid getting swamped by unuseful ads on the search results and instead have a change at getting to actual data from actual people. In this sense, ads are not only not useful for finding out about the stuff i want: they are actually hampering my ability to do so.

[sanswork]

Google doesn't exist in this world remember

[epidemian]

Yes, i remember. I remember Google the search engine being a thing before it became an ad-ridden space.

Search engines are useful things. They can still exist on a world without ads.

[sanswork]

Google existed before ads by losing investor money. Who is paying for it when ads are banned?

[epidemian]

This a thread about imagining a world without ads. If we're trying to envision that, it surely is not too hard to imagine how such a useful service for society as a search engine could be funded by other means, right?

There are many many examples of useful services (both private and public) in our own world that manage to exist without the need to get plastered by obnoxious ads.

[sanswork]

People get upset at the idea of using government money to feed the starving. Why do you assume they would be ok with spending billions to create a search engine?

The reality is you can choose to have your dream reality right now. Pay for Kagi, pay for ad free streaming or buy bluerays, stay of social media or subscribe direct to your content providers in patron.

We don't need to remove free access just so a few people can go ad free. Those people can already do it they just choose not to