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Ask HN: Would an ad-free internet be better?

by calderarrow on 12/18/21, 4:09 AM with 10 comments

• by smoldesu on 12/18/21, 5:52 AM

  I can't say for sure. It's one of those things where I feel like if we transitioned to it fully, alternative forms of greed would dominate the platform and ruin it before we could fully understand what was the problem.

  But, I can say this much. I was getting tired of seeing constant pop-ups and advertisements on other OSes (Have you tried the new Safari?), so I bit the bullet and switched to a full-on desktop Linux rig about 3 years ago. It has it's ups and downs, which are worth talking about in a separate context, but one of the most jarring things is how it invokes a strange feeling of solitude. Updates are at-will. News apps don't come pre-installed. You don't even need a browser to install your software. There's an uncanny emotion that I get from using Linux, even 36 months later, where I'm really just alone with my system. I like the feeling, it reminds me of being alone with a good book and a pad of paper, but I can really do anything I want. I'm not sure other people would like it, though. Today's youth are growing up dependent on an attention economy for better and worse, so I bet they'd happily trade in that feeling of anomie for a gaming laptop or brand-new Macbook.

  In a lot of ways, that's what I think would happen with an ad-free internet. The barrel of safe, healthy browsing has gone over the waterfall. We're in a post-internet world, and removing the ads from our browsing experience would probably just confuse the majority of users, leaving them potentially even more vulnerable than they are now. It's a toss-up.

• by NithurM on 12/18/21, 6:18 AM

  I think the better option would be to remove the brokers in between advertiser and audience. Facebook, google ads work by tracking users' activity. That is what people are concerned about. And often time they show irrelevant ads that encourage impulsive buying. If the ads disappear from the face of internet, the internet will become very expensive. It will affect a lot of people including learners, unemployed people and those from third-world countries. As the internet is slowly dispersing into niche based, it is a good idea to have ads. Think of a niche based site run by an indie developer, he can collaborate with another business in his niche to show their ads on his site. It's a win-to-win situation for everyone. Developer get to pay his bills, advertisers get their brands in front of a highly potential buyers, users get to use the service for free and also get some nice recommendation through these niched ads.

  So, to sum up my answer to your question, broker-free internet would be better.

• by t-3 on 12/18/21, 4:18 AM

  Better for people who miss the old internet and gopher/gemini types. Not so much if you enjoy online shopping, commercial websites, or social media culture. Most of the most celebrated tech companies would be out of business overnight and the US economy would be screwed as well, but that's probably out of scope for this hypothetical.

• by bwb on 12/18/21, 11:38 AM

  I don't think so, ads fund a ton of great websites.

  I am mixed on brokers/tracking. I think the worry is overblown. When I talk to friends in the industry they laugh at how bad it all works. From what I see it is more like pointing a shotgun in a dark room the size of a football stadium. I would rather have more targeted ads personally.

• by tomjen3 on 12/19/21, 8:01 AM

  Perfect is a very high bar.

  In my mind it would undoubtedly be _better_. Sure there will be downsides, but not constantly having to spend brain power considering the proposals in Ads is pretty great.

  Decision fatigue is a real thing.

• by errantmind on 12/18/21, 6:36 PM

  As this is pure opinion, I'll answer yes. I'd be fine with every website that relies on ads going out of business. I can't think of one that I'd miss.

• by f0e4c2f7 on 12/18/21, 6:55 PM

  From an economics perspective it's hard to say.

  From a user perspective I can confirm that the internet and life generally is good without advertisements.

• by ssss11 on 12/18/21, 4:40 AM

  Yes, but I think the “natural” resting state will be (or should be) basic ads like on billboards. Promote your product, don’t track your customer.

• by toast0 on 12/18/21, 8:07 PM

  Assuming sites and services paid for by ads will need to be paid for by billing users, there's a lot of tradeoffs.

  maybe some sort of collective billing happens, but if not, every site that needs revenue has a paywall somewhere, and they're all going to have to deal with the billing process, chargeback, fraud, account recovery, etc. That's a lot more work than dropping in a bit of javascript here and there or an iframe or whatever, and getting a payment from one entity.

  Most ad supported sites are open to the world, even though large parts of the world doesn't make significant revenue from ads. If it's a paywall, those parts of the world probably can't pay, and miss out; whether that's because they can't afford it or because international payment is difficult and not worth the pain to get working for a small number of customers.

  On the other hand, if it's the magic happy land where ads disappear and sites still otherwise work, yeah, that'd be great, but unrealistic.

• by hindsightbias on 12/18/21, 4:13 AM

  Just go back to ascii and green screens.