Different business models and different focus. In the US, billboards are banned in four American states (Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii) and various other c

Different business models and different focus. In the US, billboards are banned in four American states (Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii) and various other counties or cities. Generally speaking, these are places that put high value on tourism driven by natural beauty (which, of course, roadside billboards tend to undermine). In photo sharing communities where there is less focus on the "social" aspects, ads are often less of a problem. From what I see, for instance, Instagram is not used as a primary resource by a lot by professional / semi-pro photographers. Many of them build online portfolios to catalog their work, and I imagine most photographers would not be terribly thrilled to see bra ads or any other ads being inserted into their portfolio of works. So these people more go to sites like Smugmug and Zenfolio. Which as far as I know is ad-free, but also isn't zero cost to set up either. Intrusive, often creepily-targeted advertising seems to be the norm now for any large social-focused Internet business. It's what keeps things "free". The question, I guess, is what is a good alternative model? Something has to pay for the server / bandwidth costs and upkeep. Coming up with a better business model (or at least one that focuses on different values, such as the atypical billboard bans) is the only real way to "get rid of the ads".