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Without advertisements, the internet would only have content worth paying for and content people want to share for reasons other than financial gain. How awful

Without advertisements, the internet would only have content worth paying for and content people want to share for reasons other than financial gain. How awful (/s).

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kelnos 2y ago
That's the thing... people would still make free content, and since there wouldn't be as many shady ways to monetize, it would cut down on low-effort (and AI-generated) garbage. The internet would be such a better place. We would probably lose some good stuff, or see it moved behind paywalls. That would be a shame, but I think it would be worth it.
- fragmede 2y ago
  I doubt that it would cut down on the amount of low effort garbage. The high effort non-garbage stuff is produced by professionals who have the luxury of spending a full work week's amount of time improving their craft. writers writing free content with no business model can't do that unless they have a trust fund. which, I suppose they're out there, but I doubt the number of those that are writers.
  - josefx 2y ago
    > I doubt that it would cut down on the amount of low effort garbage. Right now the main search engine everyone uses is run by an ad company. Just getting rid of that conflict of interest would probably help to significantly weed out garbage.
- nox101 2y ago
  I'm pretty confident that without advertising, the majority of YouTube channels people love most would not exist. maybe overall that would be a good thing as there's so much trash too
  - grishka 2y ago
    And that's fine. YouTube channels are always better when they're someone's hobby rather than a full-time job.
    - nox101 2y ago
      hard disagree. the majority of the channels I love the most have become full time jobs.
  - hypeatei 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure ad revenue for most channels is negligible so they resort to third party sponsorships or platforms like Patreon. The advertisements are there for Google to recoup some of the cost of running YT.
    - nox101 2y ago
      not sure what your point is. let's assume it's true. That still means the ads are paying for YouTube to host the videos. Without that those channels would have to pay for hosting themselves and could not afford to make the content. Further, most of them would have never even tried if it wasn't free to start Then, I don't buy your premise. Most of the channels I watch insert ads directly for Brilliant, NordVPN, etc... which means even without YouTube's ads they're still ad driven
      - hypeatei 2y ago
        > Most of the channels I watch insert ads directly Those are third party sponsorships done by channel owners, not ads inserted by YT. > That still means the ads are paying for YouTube to host the videos Your assertion was related to the channels themselves existing, not YT as a platform. I can agree that the platform probably wouldn't exist without some sort of funding source but that doesn't necessarily need to come from ads.
        nox101 2y ago
- Tepix 2y ago
  I remember an internet without ads. It was hardly all low-effeort garbage.
  - stavros 2y ago
    That's the GP's point too.
LunaSea 2y ago
Most people won't pay for content, no matter how good it is. Especially for text content. People still download or stream movies and TV series even though there are multiple high quality and official streaming platforms.

Without advertisements, the internet would only have content worth paying for and content people want to share for reasons other than financial gain. How awful (/s).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kelnos 2y ago

That's the thing... people would still make free content, and since there wouldn't be as many shady ways to monetize, it would cut down on low-effort (and AI-generated) garbage. The internet would be such a better place. We would probably lose some good stuff, or see it moved behind paywalls. That would be a shame, but I think it would be worth it.

fragmede 2y ago
I doubt that it would cut down on the amount of low effort garbage. The high effort non-garbage stuff is produced by professionals who have the luxury of spending a full work week's amount of time improving their craft. writers writing free content with no business model can't do that unless they have a trust fund. which, I suppose they're out there, but I doubt the number of those that are writers.
- josefx 2y ago
  > I doubt that it would cut down on the amount of low effort garbage. Right now the main search engine everyone uses is run by an ad company. Just getting rid of that conflict of interest would probably help to significantly weed out garbage.
nox101 2y ago
I'm pretty confident that without advertising, the majority of YouTube channels people love most would not exist. maybe overall that would be a good thing as there's so much trash too
- grishka 2y ago
  And that's fine. YouTube channels are always better when they're someone's hobby rather than a full-time job.
  - nox101 2y ago
    hard disagree. the majority of the channels I love the most have become full time jobs.
- hypeatei 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure ad revenue for most channels is negligible so they resort to third party sponsorships or platforms like Patreon. The advertisements are there for Google to recoup some of the cost of running YT.
  - nox101 2y ago
    not sure what your point is. let's assume it's true. That still means the ads are paying for YouTube to host the videos. Without that those channels would have to pay for hosting themselves and could not afford to make the content. Further, most of them would have never even tried if it wasn't free to start Then, I don't buy your premise. Most of the channels I watch insert ads directly for Brilliant, NordVPN, etc... which means even without YouTube's ads they're still ad driven
    - hypeatei 2y ago
      > Most of the channels I watch insert ads directly Those are third party sponsorships done by channel owners, not ads inserted by YT. > That still means the ads are paying for YouTube to host the videos Your assertion was related to the channels themselves existing, not YT as a platform. I can agree that the platform probably wouldn't exist without some sort of funding source but that doesn't necessarily need to come from ads.
      - nox101 2y ago
Tepix 2y ago
I remember an internet without ads. It was hardly all low-effeort garbage.
- stavros 2y ago
  That's the GP's point too.

LunaSea 2y ago

Most people won't pay for content, no matter how good it is. Especially for text content. People still download or stream movies and TV series even though there are multiple high quality and official streaming platforms.