.. I mean, they would not have jobs if they did not participate in it.
Ad supported content provides a wealth of information for people who otherwise wouldn't have access to it.
How do other businesses do it? By providing goods and services the customer wants at a fair price. Radical I know, it’s only worked for like, thousands of years...
Ads provide wealth redistribution. Resources are given to poor people subsidized by rich people.
Don’t kid yourself. If the major platforms could exclude those who aren’t in their advertisers demographics they wouldn’t waste a single server on them.
I'm old enough to remember a service, which added a footer into your IE5 and showed ads constantly, and in exchange, you got paid, with actual money. (Pocket money level, of course; unfortunately I can't recall service names, this was pre-2000.)
Getting a service for viewing ads - that is fine.
Telling me it's free then showing me ads - that's just plain dishonestly and/or lying, so don't tell me not to block ads: I never agreed to them explicitly.
And as for information access: Wikipedia, one of the most well known source of information, is running on donations - subscriptions, really. It is viable. Makes no money for investors though and serves and actual purpose, like a library.
I’m sure quite a number of people got nice bonuses and promos for bringing some of that revenue back.
While I personally avoid FB and use DDG, most folks can't or aren't allowed to (no extensions).
There are other ways for advertisers to sneak into my world, but this kind of online advertisement is not one of them.