[al_borland]

> For _some_ types of products the "barrier to entry" in the ad space can guarantee a certain level of quality (or at least reduce the change for scams).

I have always associated online ads with people who are trying to scam me. Like the giant “download” button ads on sites hosting actual software downloads. Decades of dealing with this kind of thing has led to a deep distrust of all online advertising, to the point where I pay for Kagi to not only not have ads in my search engine, but not even support the business model of using ads to fund a website.

I see people get scammed all the time from ads. It’s an easy way for the scammers to funnel users to their site. Most people I know have tried buying something based on a Facebook ad, from some random Shopify site, and never got their purchase.