Sites rely on ad impressions for revenue. I block ads anyway so either way they aren’t getting money from me.

And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost. I’m not morally opposed to advertising, I find ad supported content not worth reading especially on mobile.

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alvah 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

>And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost.

"Absolutely nothing on any website that relies on ads for revenue is of any value" is a wild take.

	▲	JKCalhoun 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		My sense is (call me naive if you like) but if the thing was of value, it would survive (or be reborn in another form) without ads. Donation supported sites (looking at you Wikipedia) or just passion projects would continue.
	▲	scarface_74 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		To be more precise, it might be air value but not worth the trade off of ads - they take away the value.

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croes 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

So you believe in free lunch.

If the ad sites die, the AI crawlers will rise the hosting costs of all others sites buy putting more traffic on them.

So either they start adding ads too or the sites die also

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JKCalhoun 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Before web advertising the entire web was a "free lunch" — if by free lunch you mean individuals putting their sites up; their only compensation being some degree of joy at spreading and sharing their passion.

The early web was eccentric and kind of … "shambly", but I would not be upset if we returned to that.

	▲	JustExAWS 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The “web” has been ad infested since shortly after Netscape was introduced. Are people forgetting about the X11 pop under ads and the “punch the monkey” banner ads.
	▲	croes 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Before AI crawler web traffic for sites was less. So now individuals putting up their sites face the risk of higher traffic fees.

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scarface_74 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

No, I pay for Apple News, Slate, Stratechery, Downstream+ (podcast), Accidental Tech podcast, etc.

I donate to electoral-vote.com via Patreon. Most of my news comes from podcasts and those ads don’t bother me as much as web ads. I said I wasn’t morally opposed to them.

I don’t use any app that is ad supported without the option to pay for an ad free experience the same with streaming services.

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alvah a day ago | parent | next [-]

>I don’t use any app that is ad supported without the option to pay for an ad free experience

That is, obviously, still ad-supported content...

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croes 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That's not my point.

Thanks to AI crawlers the traffic costs will rise and all the sites who were ad free either need additional income, most likely ads, or will shut down.

	▲	raw_anon_1111 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Services like CloudFlare are offering better services all of the time to block web crawlers.