> Seriously: when was the last time you were infected with malware from ads? This is a talking point from a different millennium. I still see this very frequen

> Seriously: when was the last time you were infected with malware from ads? This is a talking point from a different millennium. I still see this very frequently. I work in tech, so broadly speaking, I'm less likely to find my machine infected by malware from ads because I know enough not to fall for their tricks. Smart, but less technical, friends and family end up with malware infected devices all the time due to malvertising. > This attitude has already resulted in almost all professional, reliable news sources to implement (metered) paywalls. So instead of being informed by dozens of sources, citizens now get their news from just reading the headlines on Facebook, or sometimes the single site they are willing to pay for. I'd actually posit that the reverse is true. Because advertising pays publishers for reader's eyeballs regardless of the quality of content on their websites, fake news and clickbait are rampant. Harmful news outlets flourish because they don't need to convince anyone to pay for their bullshit stories - just get enough people to click or share. If they relied on users paying to read their stories, I reckon a lot of ad-supported extremist sites would die overnight. There shouldn't be a financial incentive to drive clicks and shares regardless of content quality.