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Comment by Workaccount2 | Hacker News Reader

What does the ad-free internet look like?

People hate ads, they are annoying and provide virtually no value to the end user.

People hate subscriptions, they cost money, are annoying to track, and gravitate towards being impossible to cancel.

Donations are feel good, but no one donates. Conversion rates tend to be <5% of users.

This topic always draws tons of outrage and anger over ads, but no one ever provides a solution besides "Users are entitled to everything on the internet and don't owe anyone anything. If you put content online, you are dumb to expect compensation, but I really love your work!"

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> People hate ads, they are annoying and provide virtually no value to the end user.

[Today.] In the past (1980s, maybe?) I remember getting these fat volumes consisting of only ads (they had everything, from clothing to electronics to LEGO sets) and browsing them with my siblings for hours on end, and fantasizing about getting some of these.

I believe the old style ads, where the website you visit serves locally hosted ads that are in line with the subject matter, not only are not frustrating but actually provide some value as they help you to discover more about things you are already interested in.

These are also blocked by adblockers though.

Not necessarily though, it depends on the set up.

I know people who still love to receive ads in the (physical) mail.

I fucking dream of going back to the Internet where no one is compensated for their work. I'm not compensated for mine, and I don't want to be. Read freely!

> but I really love your work

This is your point of confusion. The people you're talking to are indifferent to your work. If it's there and someone links it to them, they might read it, but if it's not, that's fine too. They're sure as hell not going to run malware for the privilege though.

It's been a running joke for decades in discussion forums that people don't read the articles. They don't pay for it because it's actually not worth anything to them.

I don't know, apparently the internet can't work, too bad. Let's cancel it for now and come back to this whole "internet" project when we figure it out. In the meantime there's ham radio, doesn't seem to suffer from the same "who will pay for my content" hoo-ha.

So you expect compensation for your comment? If not, then here's your answer.. I want to read what others _wanted_ to write, not what they wrote for money.

You made me check damninteresting.com, and I'm delighted to see that it's back again, with a contributed post about adenoids and a Bellows post about word games, and (groan) one of those "free daily word games" that many sites have now, presumably in an attempt to get people to donate regularly.

I know Alan Bellows wants to write, but the thing is, he wants to write for money, so that he can write and live. I want to read it, but the other thing is, I don't want to give him any money. I suppose I might do if I had like ten times as much of the stuff, but I don't. The whole situation is enigmatic.

We need to differentiate between "he wants to write instead of working as X" and "he wants to write and he is willing to do that in his spare time".

I know that this isn't that simple.. someone who's not employed or has a job where they can mostly do nothing might just "want" to write and be able to, while others might _really really_ want to write but they can't afford it.

Still, as long as there exists someone who wants - and is able to - give me good content with no strings attached, I'd rather consume that than content written for money.

I remember a time when the internet was ran by techies and hobbyists for zero money, zero expectation etc. Sure, there were some banner ads on some websites but very few mega-corps wanting their pound of flesh like today.

A hobbyist-run internet can still be done today too... no need for mega-corporations to run every website when it costs a few ££ per month to run a web server that could easily handle millions of monthly connections.

Also, it's not my job to validate a scummy business model like advertising: if they (the corporations with ads) want to use them as their primary revenue source that's on them, not me!

>What does the ad-free internet look like?

Quieter. More focused. Better.

More Wikipedias, personnal blogs and passion projects, less Facebooks, Twitters and Googles? Where do I sign?

I've always said the issue with the internet is that dreadful attention extractivism logic that led us into those anti-human patterns. Get rid of advertising and you get rid of all of its symptoms altogether.

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