A few years ago I'd have agreed with that, but recently I changed my mind: why not pay directly for things you like? Ads on the web a scourge, they really do ma

A few years ago I'd have agreed with that, but recently I changed my mind: why not pay directly for things you like? Ads on the web a scourge, they really do make the whole experience of using a site worse for the customer. And they can't really be a good deal for advertisers either. I can't remember the last time I ever clicked on an ad, and I definitely never purchased anything after clicking on a banner. Ads are a scam business. Sure, Facebook and Google are basing their business on it, but how long until this house of cards finally collapses? However, alternative models are scarce. Subscription-based sites mostly don't work. Donation-based models can be somewhat successful, but only with huge user bases and even then they'll never be as financially successful as the ad-based fantasy businesses of Facebook et al. I think a karma-based economy is worth exploring. For example, if everyone allocated an arbitrary sum each month to spend on services they like, then we would just need one or more payment services that distributed this sum among all the sites you gave "karma" to in a given month.