> without something to monetize? Not without something to monetize. Just no advertising. Commerce sites would exist largely as-today in this alternate univers

> without something to monetize? Not without something to monetize. Just no advertising. Commerce sites would exist largely as-today in this alternate universe. Early on there was a lot of interest in micropayments for funding sites with interesting content. That pretty much all dies because it was a harder problem to kickstart off the ground than just stuffing every page full of ads. But, with ads prohibited, the Internet would've evolved differently and we'd probably have a very convenient way to pay some fraction of a penny to any site we frequent, all with zero ads and none of the toxic consequences of forcing people to view ads.