4 ms·

I don't agree. The internet definitely did not exist in any form that would be today seen as sufficient ever before. The sheer scale makes it impossible, advert

I don't agree. The internet definitely did not exist in any form that would be today seen as sufficient ever before. The sheer scale makes it impossible, advertising is the only way poor people could afford it and pay for it without paying money at the same time (so the developer now has a new option too). The options these companies that exist thanks to ads gave to all businesses in my country are enormous and have definitely helped greatly to grow our GDP (I live in the country with the greatest number of online stores per citizen). I love Facebook and Google for the options their advertising platforms have created for people (however not being ethical is not cool at all).

Moru 8y ago
There is other ways to see ads. The companies don't pay money for advertising, they pay to make poor people buy things they don't need. If they would pay the site owner directly, maybe they would not be as poor?
- mrep 8y ago
  I doubt it. One of the interesting things about the ad funded internet is that it is effectively progressive. Rich people have more money to spend which makes their clicks more valuable which means the revenue made by ad funded companies comes disproportionately from the rich and yet poor and rich get to use the same exact internet despite the fact the it is mostly paid for by the rich. I'm sad a lot of the top tier newspapers in America are starting to enforce their paywalls now because we are back to the state where only richer people can afford high quality news.
- hopler 8y ago
  Almost every ad is targeted at richer people, not poor people, for obvious reasons -- right her people have money to spend. Most companies would be fine giving their product free or at marginal cost to poor people if they could require richer people to pay. That's how freemium works, when it works. That's how DVD region coding works. That's how international book publishing works. That's why airfare is so cheap in economy class.

Moru 8y ago

There is other ways to see ads. The companies don't pay money for advertising, they pay to make poor people buy things they don't need. If they would pay the site owner directly, maybe they would not be as poor?

mrep 8y ago
I doubt it. One of the interesting things about the ad funded internet is that it is effectively progressive. Rich people have more money to spend which makes their clicks more valuable which means the revenue made by ad funded companies comes disproportionately from the rich and yet poor and rich get to use the same exact internet despite the fact the it is mostly paid for by the rich. I'm sad a lot of the top tier newspapers in America are starting to enforce their paywalls now because we are back to the state where only richer people can afford high quality news.
hopler 8y ago
Almost every ad is targeted at richer people, not poor people, for obvious reasons -- right her people have money to spend. Most companies would be fine giving their product free or at marginal cost to poor people if they could require richer people to pay. That's how freemium works, when it works. That's how DVD region coding works. That's how international book publishing works. That's why airfare is so cheap in economy class.