People are talking about this as if there are two options here: ads pay for the internet or the internet drops behind paywalls. There's another option: we go b

People are talking about this as if there are two options here: ads pay for the internet or the internet drops behind paywalls. There's another option: we go back to using non-monetized or minimally-monetized services. Frankly, those are better. I don't care about giant media websites aimed at providing oversimplified, sanitized content for the lowest common denominator of people. I don't care about social media or snappy web interfaces that put a layer of varnish on crap. I care about quality information, and people who are knowledgeable and care about a topic will share information on that topic even if they don't make much money for it. People running blogs or small informational services will still do that. Services like PBS/NPR will still be funded by government and donations. Bloggers who are knowledgeable enough will still be able to sell books. Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/etc. can all go bankrupt and I don't care. Sites can go back to being straight unstyled HTML with no CSS and I'm fine with that. Web 2.0 is completely worthless to me. Ads AND paywalls can go to hell. Sheldon Brown's website is still the best resource about bikes on the internet. The worst degradation it has experienced is the apologies for politically incorrect content that its current maintainer has added due to pressure from people on social media.