Low confidence—I think the internet shouldn’t run on ads. Making people pay for content ensures that the internet is providing real value rather than just clickbaiting, and the dependence on advertising creates controversies where corporations compel content hosts to engage in dubious censorship. The government can always shift tax and welfare policy to account for the additional financial burden on low income people. Yes in theory people could always create and use paid websites, but there is too much inertia, both economically (network effects) and socially (people now feel very entitled to the Internet). That being said, marginal ad work doesn’t seem substantially bad or anything, salary is much more important. With any industry, if you imagine the hypothetical where all of its employees donate to EA causes, the total consequences would clearly be net positive.
I think the internet shouldn’t run on ads. Making people pay for content ensures that the internet is providing real value rather than just clickbaiting
Before the internet you still had tabloids with shocking claims on the cover that, after you bought the paper and read it you realized the claims were overblown. If we moved away from ads the specific case of “you pay, and afterwards you realize you were baited” would still exist.
the dependence on advertising creates controversies where corporations compel content hosts to engage in dubious censorship.
The role of middlemen like Google diminishes this substantially. Since the advertisers and publishers aren’t talking directly to each other we end up with censorship only on the sort of thing that advertisers generally agree on: things like “adult or mature, copyrighted, violent, or hateful content”—AdSense policies: a beginner’s guide
Yes in theory people could always create and use paid websites, but there is too much inertia, both economically (network effects) and socially (people now feel very entitled to the Internet).
I’m not convinced this isn’t just “people don’t want to have to pay for things, and mostly don’t mind ads that much”. Newspapers, magazines, and cable TV both cost money and have ads. Analog radio sticks around on an ad-funded basis and people keep listening because it’s incredibly low friction.
The government can always shift tax and welfare policy to account for the additional financial burden on low income people.
Ok, but in practice the government mostly doesn’t do this. Figuring out how to get it to do this would open up a *ton* of valuable policies, but we also need to make reasonable choices in the present.
Low confidence—I think the internet shouldn’t run on ads. Making people pay for content ensures that the internet is providing real value rather than just clickbaiting, and the dependence on advertising creates controversies where corporations compel content hosts to engage in dubious censorship. The government can always shift tax and welfare policy to account for the additional financial burden on low income people. Yes in theory people could always create and use paid websites, but there is too much inertia, both economically (network effects) and socially (people now feel very entitled to the Internet). That being said, marginal ad work doesn’t seem substantially bad or anything, salary is much more important. With any industry, if you imagine the hypothetical where all of its employees donate to EA causes, the total consequences would clearly be net positive.
Before the internet you still had tabloids with shocking claims on the cover that, after you bought the paper and read it you realized the claims were overblown. If we moved away from ads the specific case of “you pay, and afterwards you realize you were baited” would still exist.
The role of middlemen like Google diminishes this substantially. Since the advertisers and publishers aren’t talking directly to each other we end up with censorship only on the sort of thing that advertisers generally agree on: things like “adult or mature, copyrighted, violent, or hateful content”—AdSense policies: a beginner’s guide
I’m not convinced this isn’t just “people don’t want to have to pay for things, and mostly don’t mind ads that much”. Newspapers, magazines, and cable TV both cost money and have ads. Analog radio sticks around on an ad-funded basis and people keep listening because it’s incredibly low friction.
Ok, but in practice the government mostly doesn’t do this. Figuring out how to get it to do this would open up a *ton* of valuable policies, but we also need to make reasonable choices in the present.