Infrastructure costs money. There's no way around it. I'm all up for banning ads. But there should be another viable business model to replace it.
The thing that changed in the mid-2000s was that we found ways to not only provide these services, but extract billions of dollars while doing it. Good for Mark Zuckerberg, but I doubt the internet would be hurting without that.
Now fucking everything about the world is a hustle to monetize every possible nook and cranny around content. There isn't even content anymore, it's nearly all AI slop as a substrate to grow ads on.
I am nostalgic for the era when I found "punch the monkey" irritating. People used to make websites as a labor of love.
That goodwill seems to be in short supply since... hmmm the mid 2000's (rough guess). And goodwill like that seems to be honestly not even understood by the generation(s)* since then.
* Saying "generations" (plural) there because we've had quite a few people go through their formative years during this time and not just a single clearly defined generation.
That's no revisionism. Infrastructure always costed money, but it was relatively inexpensive to develop a social network back then. Instagram had a team of 12 if I'm not mistaken before being bought. So it was easier back then to justify what was pocket change to corporations. The potential payoff was incredible.
But eventually the money printing machine needs to start printing money.
Why? The available computing power and bandwidth are orders of magnitude more plentiful / cheaper than in the 2000s, too. I can't think of any technical reason why we couldn't have social in today's world media without advertising money.
The main non-technical reason why you can't run Facebook on the cheap is that it's expensive to respond to regulatory and PR pressures they're under. You need an army of lawyers, lobbyists, and compliance people in almost every country on the planet.
But that's in some respects a product of consolidation that we never really needed in the first place: we don't need every human on the planet on the same social network. Social circles are small and the only reason to have everyone under the same roof is if you want to be the gatekeeper for the world's ad targeting data.
The scrutiny is also a product of amount of money involved. No one is exerting as much pressure on Signal, Mastodon, etc, precisely because they're not trillion-dollar companies.
So while infrastructure is also much cheaper than it was 10 maybe 20 years ago, and you could in theory spin up an Instagram competitor in the cheap, people use what they use, and the money printing machine needs to print money. So we need an alternative to ads, which could be just people choosing to joint a paid social network, or another business model, but to just write off ads as something you could regulate into oblivion without consequences is just naive.
I've actually wrote before in my blog against a form of political realism, and this in a sense falls into it, but we gotta be pragmatic eventually, and take into account the dynamics that feed the powers that be.
Most of those IRC servers ran on university networks. (So did most IRC clients, until the late 1990s.)
That seems like an arbitrary penalty. What harm is being prevented by banning advertising, in general?
That directly leads to all these addictive dark patterns.
The harms of addictive design in internet social media.
Regardless, my point was just to answer the question, "is it okay as a business model?" Ostensibly, if advertising online were banned, a business model centered around selling online advertisement attention would not be ok.
In practice, this cuts of 80% of the worlds population.
Catering to the lowest common denominator is how we got the Burger King guy on spirit airlines.
I have and do pay for website access. That doesn't mean much if the current model flocks to no paid services.
Its been 30 years and no one has been able to continue that "etc".
The same government who threatened to take ABC broadcast license because Kimmel made a joke about a dead podcaster
And then there is that entire “free press” thing in the constitution.
And Disney quickly recanted as soon as people started canceling, even the conservative owned local affiliates had to back down.
The potential failure of the system because of the effect of the wrong choice in this matter is evidence in favor of my argument, not against it.
They also can’t stop me because I don’t “look like I belong” in my neighborhood (true story). I’d rather not give the government any more power.
Have you every thought about the fact that power doesn't just disappear? Someone is going to have control over the jackbooted thugs. Claiming democratic norms and public control over them is bad just ensures that they become the tools of a few people without any way to constrain them.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience and that we are currently having one as a country, but the solution is to push for more democracy, not more privatization.
And to pretend like the US is a democracy where the popular vote matters completely ignores reality. Every state gets two Senators so South Dakota has the same voting power in the Senate as California. The house districts are so gerrymandered that the sum total of Democratic votes will always be less than their share of the house since it is so easy to dilute Democrats voting power since they live in major cities.
So if you want to push for a more (small d) democratic government, you’re going to first have to overall the entire constitution so the largest states population’s aren’t diluted.
And I posted a link earlier that the government has literally been trying to defund PBS since the 1960a and Mr. Rogers himself had to beg Congress not to defund it.
Right now today the federal government is erasing any signs of anything in museums and national parks that doesn’t make the US look good or admit that gay people exist. This is the government you want controlling the press?
The constitution doesn't say anything about whether the government can fund media.
> And to pretend like the US is a democracy where the popular vote matters completely ignores reality.
No one made that claim. In fact, no one claimed that popular vote was even a good standard for a democracy. Is your assertion that the solution to an imperfect system is not to try and reform it, but to rely on a worse one?
> So if you want to push for a more (small d) democratic government, you’re going to first have to overall the entire constitution so the largest states population’s aren’t diluted.
I don't know if that's the answer to the nation's problems, but it is worthy of consideration.
> And I posted a link earlier that the government has literally been trying to defund PBS since the 1960a and Mr. Rogers himself had to beg Congress not to defund it.
The government is not a unified monolith. The whole point of democracy is that everything is being debated all the time and sometimes people don't agree and try to stop or changes things that others did. That's a good thing.
> Right now today the federal government is erasing any signs of anything in museums and national parks that doesn’t make the US look good or admit that gay people exist. This is the government you want controlling the press?
I think that's bad, and hopefully enough other people do so that we can vote out the people who are doing that and restore things to how they were.
How can the press be free of government power and funded by the government?
> your assertion that the solution to an imperfect system is not to try and reform it, but to rely on a worse one?
So as both a student of the history of the Civil Rights movement, whose still living parents grew up in the Jim Crow South and who himself has been harassed by the police for thinking he doesn’t belong in his own neighborhood where he made twice the household income alone as the median household income in the county (which itself was the most wealthy county in the state), you’ll have to excuse me for not trusting the government.
I have never once been harassed by a private company and I’ve never had a problem getting a job in 30 years across 10 jobs because of discrimination - everything from startups to the second largest employer in the US (working remotely for that one was why I did make twice the income of the richest county in GA).
> No one made that claim. In fact, no one claimed that popular vote was even a good standard for a democracy. Is your assertion that the solution to an imperfect system is not to try and reform it, but to rely on a worse one?
Well for me, the worse thing that can happen is give a government where the states who are predominantly made up and vote for people who are hostile toward people who look like me have outsized power. Who is going to speak truth to power if the power funds the press?
> The government is not a unified monolith. The whole point of democracy is that everything is being debated all the time and sometimes people don't agree and try to stop or changes things that others did. That's a good thing.
Have you not been paying attention for the last two years?
> I think that's bad, and hopefully enough other people do so that we can vote out the people who are doing that and restore things to how they were.
You know that whole thing about what people think don’t matter between 2 senators per state and gerrymandering and to a lesser extent the electoral college? This country knew exactly what they were getting when they voted in 2024 and 40% of the people still support it.
And there are many places in the middle between 'government always bad' and 'private always bad'. Extreme positions never get you a good version of the thing you want.
The structural problem is the government. The structure of the government as stated in the Constitution is that the rural Bible thumping, racist part of America structurally has more power because of 2 Senators per state and to a lesser extent the electoral college. Until that’s not the case, the government will always be statistically more likely to be antagonistic to people who look like me.
I’ve worked for 30 years and the last decade+ in roles that put me in the rooms of decision makers. First as a tech lead at product companies and then as a customer facing consultant.
I never wondered whether I was going to be treated differently by corporate America - and I never have either as interviewee or dealing with CxO, directors, etc. The tools of the government on the other hand …
The public servants - the people with the legal right to take my property, liberty and life - those are the problem. You see what the full force of a corrupt government can do to its enemies with the meritless prosecution of Trump’s enemies and that almost half of the people still support. The trigger happy cop that can pull me over because I suspiciously look like I’m going to my own house worries me much more than Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post. The alternative would be the government owning and controlling the press? This government. Even today if I want to learn about anything related to my health, I trust the Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos more than I trust the DHS run by RFK jr? You think that if the government funded newspapers you would get the truth about vaccines? The masked jack booted thugs in MN?
You realize slavery was built into the constitution right? That whole 3/5ths of a person thing. Also the same government endorsed “separate but equal” in a Supreme Court case that had my again still living parents growing up in less well funded schools and drinking from separates water fountains.
I mentioned that until a couple of years ago, I lived in what was the most affluent county in the state. That county was Forsyth County GA and just so you don’t think I’m making this up just to argue.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46954232
While the outskirts of this county have diversified as far as not being rural. It’s still mostly White and conservative (my step son was one of only four Black students in his entire public high school). More of the Bush/Romney type of classic conservative than populist. What I didn’t mention was this was Forsyth County only 25-35 years ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dlzwh2Wh1fw
It was a “sundown town”.
Those people haven’t gone anywhere - we had White friends that lived in the older parts of Forsyth County and even they told us to make sure we call if we get lost coming to their house and don’t walk up to the wrong house by mistake.
FWIW: we didn’t move because we had any problems living there. We sold the house for twice what we had it built for eight years earlier and downsized after my younger (step)son graduated and moved to state tax free, warmer Florida once I pivoted into consulting where it’s relatively easy to find companies that allow remote work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers%27s_1969_United_St...
And Trump just cut funding for both PBS and NPR
We can argue about public media but Germany is a really bad example.
Nahh that would never happen.
Also, what would stop the autocrat from outlawing any non-government news source?? A piece of paper written by people 250 years ago certainly won't.
Any government funded press would either be a tool of propaganda or be constantly worried about getting defunded - like what just happened to NPR and PBS.
The government just required the press to get pre approval before they could publish anything - even non classified info.
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-news/2025/09/pentagon...
This idea was so abhorrent that not even Fox News would sign on.
https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-reporting-rules-hegseth-...
Now the part of the press corps that has direct access to talk to Pentagon officials is literally made up of right wing social media influencers.
But I also agree it's when <1% of people where online, and it's never going back to that.
My comment about not having a right to business models is in some ways more general. Regardless of whether this business model is protected for some other reason, business models in general aren't, and it's a common flawed argument that they are.
Note, neither one of us is a corporation, so "we" doesn't refer to corporations.
Clearly any scheme will not be perfect but these sort of objections either seem to misunderstand the core issue, or to be willfully confusing by raising irrelevant details.
Five dollars a month to subscribe or whatever. If people get the value out of it, you can get them to pay it.
Ad based revenue comes with its own problems. But I doubt there's that many readers who so ferociously disagree with an article that they then refuse to consume any more free content from that outlet any more, which is what happens when someone cancels their subscription. So, to me it makes sense that ad supported news outlets don't suffer as much from having a wider range of views.
>Maybe the difference in that case is that they will publish content that attracts people from various political extremes? That certainly wouldn't make them less polarized though
Replace "extremes" with "views". Most people aren't extremists. I don't understand why being exposed to various views would not make them less polarised?
Fuck ads. What's absurd is tolerating them and the damage they do to media, consumers, kids, lesser and/or more honest businesses, culture, products, and so on all the way to the Windows and macOS system UIs.
Ads are speech.
If I get paid to say something I would have said anyway, is that not free speech?
>preselected
If I go to a protest with a sign that my friend made because I can't, that is not free speech?
I don’t think you need to count companies being able to put any message out there as free speech.
No, they are not.
People have been brainwashed and legal systems have been paid and bought for to consider them as such, just like corporations have been whitewashed to be treated as "persons".
In any case, we regulate all other kinds of speech as well: explicit content, libel, classified information, cigarette ads, and so on.
If only individuals are allowed freedom of speech NYT, CNN, and other news organizations do not have first amendment rights.
Are you sure you've thought this through?
Granted, that's proven to be a horrible concept. So let's repeal that.
And this is about Europe, which has never had an absolutist view of rights to begin with. In Europe, rights are seen as intended to be balanced against each other instead of maximizing an arbitrary set of them to 100%. You have the right to free expression (except in... most countries, so let's call it a theoretical right) as well as the right to not be preyed upon. Although it's legal to distribute chemicals, some of them are highly addictive so they're restricted. Same with social media.
At the same time, this has the same energy of "if we release all the files, the system will collapse". Maybe we need the billionaires to feel some pain sometimes (even if yes, we'll feel more overall).
Advertising sucks in this thread too.
By that I mean, people are not speaking plainly, and it is almost ingrained into our societies now. We "sell" our position in a discussion, a debate.
For example, regulation does curtail freedom. Completely.
However, lack of regulation can harm people. Significantly.
Thus, regulation does not give people more freedom, it can however reduce harm.
In democratic nations, often judges will weigh these two things, when determining if a regulation passes the muster. In my country, we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and often judges will determine if a challenged regulation is of sufficient, required public good, whilst not overtly reducing freedom of the individual.
This is a mature conversation.
Advertising is not.
A primary example I've seen in the US, is people calling immigrants "undocumented" on one side, and "criminals" on the other. This is, of course, a reduction in nuance, and designed to advertise a position merely with the words used. And it is a societal sickness.
An illegal alien is just that, and using that term confers no judgement, for it is simply fact.
There was a time when politics were not first and fore in terms of the use of language. The current trend to be "touchy feely" over use of language, and find great offense at the use of language, does nothing other than stop debate. Reduce discussion. Cause schism instead of collaboration.
And there are those around us, which prefer that.
Don't feed them.
But the thing is that statistically the likelihood they were discussing in good faith about this is near none, instead their way of speaking are telltales of a libertarian, where they have a almost religious believe that regulation is their biggest enemy and will never admit that the lack of it could harm or even kill them, I have wasted many many hours talking with such kind of people and don't aim to waste more arguing in good faith giving nuanced responses.
If there were no regulation against someone picking you up off the street and chaining you up in their basement, they would be more free in this scenario and you would be less free. You might be able to say regulation can curtail freedom and at the same time increase freedom.
>An illegal alien is just that, and using that term confers no judgement, for it is simply fact.
Well, it also has a connotation just like the other words. "Illegal" and "alien" both evoke meaning that goes beyond the specific condition, and that phrase was generally the predecessor of "criminals" in this example. Those who use different terms are also incentivized to convince others that their chosen word is the one that is most "simply fact" and not "touchy feely" language.
This depends on what definition of freedom you are using.
Take this definition.
> the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do
Being able to walk down a street because there is a regulation restricting cars would enhance my freedom.
It amuses me how the "land of the free" makes it a crime for people to cross the street without doing it at regulated locations.
> Thus, regulation does not give people more freedom, it can however reduce harm.
When I say regulation is freedom, I'm borrowing from dialectics. The only way we figured out how to move forward is to leave something behind.
So when you see regulation, the absence of a given right, let's say to carry a deadly weapon in public, you have to see this is the tailend of the synthesis of a long debate, where we agreed that the risks of arming the population outweighs the benefits of self protection.
So regulation is freedom because freedom is choice, and to choose is to leave something behind. Regulation is just the manifestation of the consequences of that choice.
Say a a kid started throwing tantrums at school. By not punishing/ removing him you restrict the freedom of everyone else.
Regulations can protect freedoms, but they don’t create them. Freedom is inherent. Regulations protect.
If that's not viable enough, so be it.
I think one thing to understand about advertising is that it fundamentally breaks the way capitalists say capitalism works. If you really want capitalism to be about competition to create the best quality at the lowest cost, then you can't have advertising. Advertising inherently drives up cost because it costs, and it allows lower-quality, higher-ost products to outcompete higher-quality, lower-cost products if they are better advertised.
And before some advertiser comes along and says, "But how will we find out about goods and services!?" Search engines. Independent reviewers. Word out mouth. Experts. These are solved problems.
And more to the point, advertising is literally the worst way to find out about goods and services. Mostly, advertising is simply lies, and when it's telling the truth it's not telling you the whole truth. If you're concerned about people being able to find out about goods and services with any accuracy, then you should be against advertising. Ads aren't information, they're misinformation which prevents consumers from making accurately informed decisions.
But in reality is going to crap too as how you select the “right” company? If the company is owned by Gov then it will probably be worst than now.
Then it will be back to communism
You do not have any reason to think I've (1) "arrested emotional development" nor (2) an "ideological blind spot"; (3) my "defense of harmful technologies" was not even presented, let alone (4) does it have anything to do with old men shaking their fists at clouds; and you do not have any reason to say I've (5) not been open-minded.
The only thing I said is that there have been some happenings to be entertained by, that is not exclusive to other feelings about them. I can think whoever set up MJ Rathbun has been irresponsible while also laughing at the dumb thing their irresponsible decisions caused.
These feelings are not mutually exclusive and hostility towards the ones I expressed because you made assumptions about other feelings I must have is an indication of arrested emotional development and certainly doesn't herald open-mindedness. Obviously (this is from my perspective, let's remember our emotional development and open-mindedness), you must fear these things in some manner and you are projecting said fears onto my statements in these comments.
Maybe it could be good again, but not on the path it's on.