For context, I volunteer at a community center and library helping people use computers (usually focused on kids going into stem field, but the general public uses it too). It’s not a diverse sample as this serves only a only a specific middle and working class neighborhood, and I have not been rigorous in data collection (or have literally any strategy to do so).

My problem with the ad soup that is Fandom is that the community that is providing the content and inhabiting the space is not the one benefiting from the placement of the ads. This creates a perverse incentive for Fandom to maximize ad revenue at all costs. A publisher who is also the steward of the community will typically be more selective with what ads and where to put them.

I find it tragic that after the heyday of self hosted software like forums, we entered what I fully believe will become a dark age for the internet where content is walled away by the larger providers who have every incentive to extract value from users and hoard their data, both given and created, to maximize their own interests.