But maybe (and likely for worse) LLMs will finally kill this model.
Unfortunately, what I think will happen - and indeed already is - is that the AI companies themselves will replace much of the WWW. Sites like the one I am talking about will cease to exist. AI companies, once they can no longer scrape (steal) the data will end up licensing the data themselves and replace us as the distributor to end users. Perhaps as a subscription add-on or also with an ad based model.
Which to some may be fine. Personally, I don't want a few centralized AI companies replacing the hundreds of thousands of independent websites online. Way too much centralized power there.
It's so much easier to know the truth when someone else tells me what it is and what to think about it.
How refreshing.
I hate ads and I hate having to use an ad blocker to be able to not go crazy in order to use the Internet.
You merely hate "having" to serve ads because it denies you profit from the people you're exploiting with those ads.
Why is your business more deserving to exist on the Internet than my usage??
The minute the internet dies for good, the chat bots will run half-locally and request payments to stop recommending VRAM enlarging pills.