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It would be nice if there was a whole segment of the internet that people used that was completely ad-free. Something that a network of blogs, forums, etc coul

• pwodhouse 7y ago
  How would you enforce that? How would you find and ban AstroTurf? (Thank you, Google GBoard, for the marketing autocorrect built-in)
• jasode 7y ago
  >It would be nice if there was a whole segment of the internet that people used that was completely ad-free. Well, it would be nice but it's not possible to implement a truly ad-free community at (large) internet scale. The issue is that a supposed "ad-free zone" of the internet will become an attractive magnet for stealth ads that don't look like obvious ads. Ad-free zones can work if the community is small and everybody knows each other -- such as an Amish community in a small town. Members can interact without ulterior motives of selling something. But we can't scale that ad-free ideal all the way up to millions of anonymous and pseudonymous bloggers, webforum members, and website owners. When a community becomes too large, it exceeds the ability of its regular members to trace the money trail of everybody else that's participating in the commercial-free internet zone. In the end, if you're interacting outside a small circle of trusted friends, you just have to keep your wits about you to hopefully detect hidden agendas of advertising.