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Unfortunately the web as we know it would largely not exist without advertising revenue. Think of all the free services we enjoy each day, they are all funded t
by tdm911 17y ago
Unfortunately the web as we know it would largely not exist without advertising revenue. Think of all the free services we enjoy each day, they are all funded through advertising of some description.
If there were no advertising on the web, I can't help but feel it would still be nothing more than a large internet newsgroup/forum without much that makes it the rich experience it is today.
- hollerith 17y agoDid you experience the internet before ads? If not, you might be surprised by how rich the experience was.
- tdm911 17y agoI started using the web around 1995, so I guess that depends on what time period you are referring to. I certainly didn't use it before the first graphical browsers appeared! I guess my point is things like Gmail, flickr, last.fm etc would struggle to exist on subscription only. Perhaps we can do without them all though? Also, I agree with the poster below with regard to finding content these days, it can be tedious. A search on a subject can find pages of aggregators, e-commerce sites and little in the way of true content. I don't find this the norm, but it happens.
- enneff 17y agoFlickr does exist on subscriptions only.
- enneff 17y ago"Unfortunately the web as we know it would largely not exist without advertising revenue." That is my point. I liked it a lot more before the commercial web took over. Once, the web was 99% content. Now it's a real effort to find anything worth reading.
- lucumo 17y ago> Once, the web was 99% content. If you call your average vanity page "content", then sure, that's true...
- enneff 17y agoDid you actually use the web back then? It was dominated by academic, technical information, and useful discussion. No spam, no interstitial ads, no SEO, no bullshit.