> ads make available a huge amount of media and services to people who would otherwise be unable to afford it.

They don't. Follow the money: why do ads power free services? The advertiser needs to expect to make more money in the scenario where they run the ad as compared to where they don't. The viewer must be spending more money in response to having seen it

If the viewer doesn't have the money to pay the first party fair and straight (say, a video website), they also don't have money to splurge on that fancy vacuum cleaner in addition to the website and advertisement broker getting paid, no matter how many ads you throw at them

Ads are useful for honest products, like if I were to start a company and believe that I've made a vacuum cleaner that's genuinely better (more or better cleaning at a lower or equal cost) but nobody knows about it yet. However, I don't see the point in money redirection schemes where affluent people inefficiently pay for public services (if they're indistinguishable and the company shows ads to both, thereby funding the poor people's usage). Let's do that through taxes please

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simplicio 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

"They don't. Follow the money: why do ads power free services? The advertiser needs to expect to make more money in the scenario where they run the ad as compared to where they don't. The viewer must be spending more money in response to having seen it"

The first part is true, the second part pretty obviously isn't. Advertizers expect to net $ from ad buys, but most advertising isn't trying to increase a consumers total spending, its trying to drive that spending towards the companies products.

To give the most obvious example, the largest category of advertising is for food and beverage products. But no one thinks that if those ads all suddenly disappeared, people would stop buying food.

	▲	Aachen 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That makes sense, though you're still paying for the service or product that includes advertising as part of buying the third party product such as a beverage. If you can't afford the service or product then you're down to off-brand products that don't run ads

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thfuran 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>The advertiser needs to expect to make more money in the scenario where they run the ad as compared to where they don't

They don’t necessarily make more money from every user though.

	▲	Aachen 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I addressed that above. If that's the point, the people with disposable income who view the ad subsidise the ad broker and the website as a hidden charge on a product which they probably didn't need. It doesn't get less efficient than that. I'd rather that people living under the poverty threshold get subsidised directly Advertisers/brokers will also do everything to optimise to whom the ad is being shown to not waste they money. Poor people can't turn it into arbitrary cash, they can just waste time on video sites and freemium games while they barely (or don't) have enough money to make ends meet I guess I am very much in the "let's pay fair and square" corner, both for websites/services and for taxes/subsidies where needed. I don't see it working reliably or efficiently any other way in the long run