[theopsimist]

One good thing about the (current iteration of) AI era is it’s getting people used to paying directly for data. Yeah, of course i’d prefer information to be totally free. But if that isn’t possible, paying directly is far superior to paying for it via ad exposure.

[svieira]

The problem is that it amazingly easy to bias the weights and the actual size of the bias is tiny. So maintaining a per-user ad biased profile is cheap and profitable. I doubt that "paying directly" will keep out the ad men (after all, Cable TV cost money. Netflix too. Both have ads.)