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Adtech dominance goes beyond "stuff you don't pay". Plenty of non-commercial entities did and published stuff for free on the internet before ad money became do
by pyrale 2y ago
Adtech dominance goes beyond "stuff you don't pay". Plenty of non-commercial entities did and published stuff for free on the internet before ad money became dominant. For instance, the first forums I socialized on were all individual-owned or association-owned, and so were the webgames I played.
However, these entities became marginalized quickly through the creation of walled gardens, Google search discrimination pushing non-commercial websites out of the internet, and ad companies sabotaging open standards (e.g. RSS) and comitees (anyone hears about W3C these days?).
> As Churchill said of democracy, advertising is the worst system except for all of the others.
The analogy doesn't really work, because ad-tech is the reason other systems get stiffled. Democracies wouldn't look so good if their politicians got assassinated by neighbouring dictators whenever they feel like it.
- robertlagrant 2y ago> For instance, the first forums I socialized on were all individual-owned or association-owned, and so were the webgames I played. You can still make these. Why do people choose platforms with ads on over these things you remember, do you think?
- pyrale 2y agoThe crux of the question is "how people find internet resources". And the answer is that, generally, ad-driven companies have no interest in showing their users this kind of stuff, and have taken over pretty much every entrypoint. For instance, if I was to build a webgame, there is zero chance it could be found through Google nowadays. If I made an app, I would have to plead with Google's or Apple's store. I could share it on e.g. Reddit, Twitter or FB, but that would be a tiny trickle of users, and the odds of them staying on my platform and its associated forums would be extrelemy low, because the users aren't actually looking for it when they see it. Also it wouldn't be large enough to be their daily doomscrolling experience (and there is zero chance it could be integrated to it using e.g. RSS feeds). On top of that, any site not algorithmically optimizing content shown for maximum addiction would not capture users in the long run. Guess what option I have left to show my thing to people? Pay the ad-tech business. That's not something easy for an association or an individual who aren't looking to create revenue streams.
- robertlagrant 2y agoOkay, so what's your solution? People don't use search engines because they have ads; they use them for another reason. Can you compete with that reason?
- pyrale 2y agoI shared my opinion about a solution elsewhere on the tread, but in my opinion change won't happen without antitrust.