Tim Bray
“Welcome to the ad-free internet”. Paywalled. TL;dr: The proportion of people paying to avoid advertising is rising, and among the wealthy it's rising faster. What next?
https://www.economist.com/business/2023/12/11/welcome-to-the-ad-free-internet
Welcome to the ad-free internet

As the rich pay to banish commercials, advertisers hunt for their attention elsewhere

The Economist
Dec 12, 2023 at 3:44amWeb
Show threadChristian HuitemaDec 12, 2023
@timbray the article is of course paywalled. But I see more and more such articles loathing the selfish folks who block the ads, and the rich guys who pay and avoid them. All that without ever recognizing that the problem is tracking and spying, not the occasional ad banner.
Show thread bitterseedsDec 12, 2023
@huitema @timbray or when an article needs one page and due to ads it takes 6. Also, most ads have trackers embedded in them. It’s not that it’s one banner ad but when 80% of a page are ads.
Show threadDan WingDec 12, 2023
@huitema @timbray malware delivery, too
Show threadChristian HuitemaDec 12, 2023
@danwing @timbray You mean, malware specialized in digging into your device, by opposition to adware interested in digging into your life, and capable of digging into your device to get that information? #adware_is_malware
Show threadJanne MorenDec 12, 2023

@timbray
As someone who does pay for some content online - a daily newspaper, a couple of web sites, support my Mastodon instance and so on - the problem is that you can't pay for *everything* you consume. Not even close.

Even if you had the money, keeping track of thousands of monthly renewals is logistically impossible. And pay as you go is hugely unpopular.

Realistically, direct payment is only workable for a subset of the sites you depend on and visit near daily.

Show thread bitterseedsDec 12, 2023
@timbray I actually paid for a sub to SFGate and they still soiled every page with ads. So I unsubbed and blocked the ads.
Show threadBen HagerDec 12, 2023
@timbray usually this leads to a large knowledge gap, which we are already seeing in our society. The wealthy pay and get informed journalism and the poor are stuck with click-baity headlines and inflammatory rhetoric.
Show threadplay in progressDec 12, 2023
@benhager @timbray also, search engines. I see so many people enthusiastic about kagi for example, and yet so many people for whom that just won't really be an option.
Show threadThomas Enebo ✅Dec 12, 2023
@timbray What's next? We had cable tv. You pay and get ads.