I think noone argues against ads being useful, when dosed properly. Same like sleeping pills for example. The problem is that ad-based business can not resist t

I think noone argues against ads being useful, when dosed properly. Same like sleeping pills for example. The problem is that ad-based business can not resist the temptation to "overdose" the user. This is how we got in the situation that infuriates so many people (almost a billion devices use an ad-blocker). People just do not want to see so many ads everywhere. Let's take Brave for example. Open home page of brave.com and you get: "The best privacy online Browse privately. Search privately. And ditch Big Tech." And a nice screenshot. The problem is this is not what Brave works/looks like when you open it the first time. By their own research [1], on your first run Brave will immediately "phone home" 80(!) times. The original post discussed here talks about mundane features like installing an extension not working without contacting their servers about it. Then, the user is immediately welcomed by ads for several crypto services right there in the browser on the right hand side (curiously hidden on their home page screenshot). I guess that: "Browser that shares your private information with us and shows you ads you do not really want" would not fly well as a tagline. Having this behavior turned on by default is where user frustration begins and is later then just amplified by even worse behavior, again incentivized by the fact that the business model is simply dependent on ads, like the other big tech. [1] https://brave.com/popular-browsers-first-run/ https://brave.com/popular-browsers-first-run/