I get that nobody likes ads, but the killer problem was the privacy infringements they contained. We're not going to get rid of ads in totality, they offer a de

I get that nobody likes ads, but the killer problem was the privacy infringements they contained. We're not going to get rid of ads in totality, they offer a degree of fairness to companies looking to break into new markets. Without them we give up market dominance to household names. Advances in ad tech aim to remove the privacy issues so that companies can compete more fairly, and consumers can have at least targeted ads, not irrelevant ads. Rejecting tracking outright, even anonymous tracking, doesn't reduce ad density at all. It has the opposite effect, targeted ads cost more because they're more effective. Untargeted ads as we had in the earlier days of the internet, are less effective, so they're cheaper, letting companies buy them in bulk. Forcing ad buyers to return to that model means returning to the model that introduced popups and interstitials. The model of finding every damn place to cram ads. DuckDuckGo just wants more users, as they should. But this bad take on ad tech is more harmful to the end user. DuckDuckGo should be pushing for more oversight on ad tech and responsible use of ad tech, so that we get fewer, more targeted ads, not a deluge of untargeted ads like we had before. I'm not saying popups and interstitials will come back, I really hope they're now entirely untenable. But, the ad world is always looking for new real estate, and it's the market that then decides if a new shitty technique takes off. If personalised targeting, via anonymity, can survive then we'll stave off more harmful innovations.