15 years ago regular site used to have a nice banner ad that was related to the topic of the site, maybe some small logo here and there on the right side and that was about it

I did not think about blocking it, did not mind, did not care. That's how ads should have stayed instead of this giant annoying/spyware/loud/popup/... mess. Nowadays I would not use anything without ublock and i am considering storing everything locally so I dont have to visit most websites and only scrape the news.

It's especially sad since back in the day making a website, having a webserver etc. was vastly more expensive and difficult while these days it costs literally less than 10$ / month for something that can handle millions of views.

How is it possible that something was sustainable 20 years ago is not sustainable now?