There's nothing wrong with an ad supported web, but it got abused, with tracking going too far and ad companies constantly trying to defeat privacy-protecting features. They have no one to blame but themselves.
I very much disagree with this statement. I simply can't stand ads in my internet and uBlock Origin is the first thing I install in a fresh browser. I can't fathom browsing the web without it anymore.
I'd be okay with increasing taxes to cover it, or using a UK-style TV license (Internet Publishing License anyone?) and requiring people seek "Internet commissioners" like we have for Television[1], [2].
[1]: http://www.pbs.org/about/producing-pbs/proposal-process/
[2]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning
Another option is micropayments, but I worry bugs and fraud would then steal consumers' dollars instead of Advertisers'.
Germany sort of does that already. From 2006 to 2012 internet-connected devices were considered broadcast receivers for the purpose of the broadcast fees. Since 2012 the fee was simplified to a general per-household broadcast fee which reduced the fairly data collection the agency had to do to know who had which kind receiver.
The internet presence of the public-service broadcasters is also financed through those fees.
The government is the obvious choice. The USA already has the National Endowment for the Arts, which is a good start but it needs vastly more money. The important thing is that the NEA has none of the corrupting biases that afflict companies such as Google and Facebook.
Most Western countries have some equivalent for the NEA.
And yes, I would see that being an issue.
Direct support from the public would make sense, this is already at work, to some extent. The problem with this is that people are already so used to free that it may be difficult to implement.
A license system would be a good idea. It is still far off, but authors associations are working on this in some countries.
Likely they wouldn't be missed. Perhaps we would also realize that enabling everyone to become a publisher was a mistake.
Those people like creating and delivering content to others for free. They are happy to lose their own money in exchange for the product they like (an audience consuming their content). Just like I am happy to lose money to reserve a spot in my recreational basketball league. I don’t also let tennis shoe brands bid on the logo of the t-shirt I’ll wear.
I think the problem is that we have this idea that someone should be paid for content. But I don’t agree.
If they want to be paid for it, that’s totally fine too and they can charge a paywall, ask for donations, or attach ads, etc. However, plenty of other people write better stories, give away better paintings, generate better games or videos, share better poems or summaries of world news or published research or opinion articles — all without expecting any type of payment or earnings to come from their efforts or costs to make and distribute it.
The lone aspect of this I think might not be fully sustained just as people’s voluntary recreational pursuits is the upfront capital required to fund some types of investigative journalism and provide legal protection to journalists. That part makes sense to me as a subscription cost for consuming from centralized news organizations, and if those orgs run out of money, it’s a reflection that society doesn’t value the journalism compared with recreational journalists happy to generate the content without compensation.
I personally want to pay so that journalism can be thoroughly investigative and not captured by bad state actors or bad corporate actors. But that’s just my opinion... one that most humans in my country don’t seem to share, resulting in market conditions where for-pay journalism can only be sustained by a very small number of groups.
Content creation is a passion industry so creators should be prepared for making less than people in other industries.
Maybe creators should be more valued by society. If that is the case giving up our attention and privacy for free content is not the best way for a society to support them.
Without ads, the chances of breaking into an established market are extremely low.
Not all advertising is some evil plot to brainwash the public. At it's core, it's a way to let the public know about your product. In the correct context, it's beneficial to the consumer.
My Grandpa used to subscribe to Hemmings Motor News. It's a magazine that is focused on restoring vintage cars. It has regular ads, and a pretty large classified section. He used that magazine, including the ads, as a resource for vehicle restoration.
Ads selling parts for 1940's Chevy pickup trucks in a section of a magazine specifically catering to that audience make sense. They're beneficial to people in the market for those products.
I agree that web sites or real sites (eg. Times Square) that simply bombard you with anything and everything are awful. But, you can't put all advertising under one umbrella.
So do a lot of unasked opinions, especially on the internet (oh the irony). They're somehow still allowed to have and share them.
This. From my user perspective, a good website is one that gives me the information that I need, when I need it, in minimum necessary time. From ad-driven websites's perspective, a good user is one that visits the website as often as possible, and stays as long as possible; also provides all kinds of personal data (in ideal case, also on other people).
Problem is, even if I turn off the ads, I cannot turn off the design decisions that were influenced by the ads. Such as, pages trying to make you click on more pages, long descriptions where a short one would do, multiple articles containing essentially the same information, articles with partial information (which don't get updated, because a new article gets written instead), etc.
Keep in mind that ads are a very limited monetization scheme. For example, you can't even increase the price of your content and set it at a desired value.