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I know I'll get downmodded for this, but I sure as hell wish this day would come: built-in ad-blockers in all major browsers. Why? For selfish and honest reaso

by tx 19y ago

I know I'll get downmodded for this, but I sure as hell wish this day would come: built-in ad-blockers in all major browsers. Why? For selfish and honest reasons: For one, I personally don't like ads at all, I prefer the real estate on my monitor much more. Second, I will probably have to start paying (just a little bit) for services I really like. Let's see... I'd pay for google search, flickr, reddit, gmail... And Internet will be free from all this ad-revenue-fueled noise. And entrepreneurs will be more focused on building things people want to pay for. And Google will still be #1 simply because people (I believe) will want their services: search, gmail, maps, online docs, etc. After all we've been paying Microsoft for stuff we didn't really need for years.

staunch 19y ago
You might pay for a few services you use frequently, but a lot of your time is probably spent on a "long tail" of various sites you're not going to pay for. Advertisements are de facto micro-payments and they work really well. We don't even all have to pay (shhh). They're a small price to pay to keep the web growing the way it is. I think an arms race and eventual truce is the most likely result. I think startups focusing only on things people want to pay for directly would reduce the number of startups dramatically. Having eyeballs as a currency which can be exchanged for money is unbelievably powerful.