[greyman]

> I'm also not sold on the idea that the web should be free.

I see it exactly the opposite way. The web IS free, it works that way (unless someone erect a paywall, which I find perfectly acceptable), and no entity is entitled that the web should "provide" it a profitable business avenue. If someone successfully exploited the web and created a business relying on ads, that's fine, but he don't have an implicit right for that. Internet users are not obliged to display data he provides through http the way the creator expects.

[hagbardgroup]

As in, should most web content be free if more and more people are declining to have display advertising render properly in their browser? It can't be at scale and consistently without a revenue engine of some kind.

>If someone successfully exploited the web and created a business relying on ads, that's fine, but he don't have an implicit right for that. Internet users are not obliged to display data he provides through http the way the creator expects.

No, they're not. As this trend continues, the assumption that underwrites a lot of free content will stop being nearly as true. When the assumption stops being accurate, that business model fails, and more free 'content' winds up being ads gussied up as content. This is not exactly what the visionaries of the web had in mind, but them's the breaks.

In print, there are free publications handed out on street corners and in boxes. They tend to have low ad rates because the distribution is unverifiable. On cable, ad rates are still super-high, because the distribution is verifiable, and the cable networks have all the data they need about you on your cable bill + viewership surveys to aggregate for sale to advertisers.