> I get why people don't like ads

I don't like ads.

But I positively loathe underhanded tactics ad networks utilize, all the way from the "I can disagree but see their point of view" tracking, to "what the fuck are you doing" drive-by malware installs.

Fuck them, unequivocally. They're incapable or unwilling of effectively policing the content they serve, so they don't get to serve it to me.

> Spotify

Maybe I'm just a freak or something, but I've been pretty happy as a monthly-paying Spotify subscriber. It's not my impression that the ad-supported version of Spotify is the "core" product.

Ads aren't bad. Self-hosted ads often aren't blocked. Self-hosted ads don't spike my CPU either usually, or attempt to install anything. I'm sure the "massive portion of the modern Internet" will evolve towards a more sustainable advertising model. Additionally, the "modern Internet" may need to steal from the credits scene in Dr. Strange: "there are too many websites"

> It harms all the industries where the content is ad supported

Nearly all content online is user-generated. The publishers simply rip off contributors, slap ads on their content, and sell the content back to the same public that created it.

> For just what I use every day Facebook, Spotify, Google, almost all news, Youtube, Reddit, and xkcd are all add supported.

Out of all of those xkcd is the only one I like and I don't see any ads on it... The author does writes books though.

> I get why people don't like ads but it's clearly how an absolutely massive portion of the modern Internet is monetized right now

Maybe it just doesn't need to be monetised, everyone who defends intrusive internet ads talks about no alternative - Here is the alternative: If people aren't willing to pay for it, it probably shoudln't be monetised, there are plenty of things on the internet which are free, cost little to run and don't make a profit: search, social networking and video, all decentralisable in an affordable way... they don't need to be monetised, their corporate future is short.

If only there was a way to list your product on some shopping aggregator, and fight for clients by providing a better product. Too bad it is technically impossible.

And also that the majority of techies here work for companies either directly or indirectly ad supported. I include myself in that group and I use as blockers.

I don't think anyone has a problem with ads per se, as long as there aren't that many of them, they are contextual, non-intrusive, non-tracking, etc. So the problem is more about not ads, but who is controlling what ads are acceptable and how they are displayed.

Imagine a web browser that doesn't let publishers decide how ads are displayed, where and how many of them. It can choose an acceptable ad format for the user, like textual non-tracking ads below the content, and if publishers want, they can use that format to put an ad here, but nowhere else. It will still permit a lot of ad supported content, but will remove all those ad surveillance capitalism incentives and clickbaity user engagement.

While I agree with your comment, I have to say that xkcd does not have ads.