alt Hacker News> No sane person would ever come to the conclusion that it’s a great idea to make the user click away numerous popups, (cookie) banners and modals just to actually see the content.
Ads are content too, you know?
Without ad revenue, many sites would have no content at all.
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If people are only willing to consume content if they are not willing to pay for it, it is a very strong indicator that this content has no value at all, and therefore no actual need to be produced in the first place.
> Without ad revenue, many sites would have no content at all.
I'm fine with that. An ad-laden site with ads I cannot block won't have me as a visitor anyway, so I'm not really going to notice if they are gone.
If the content is so worthless that people will not voluntarily pay for it, then this outcome would be no great tragedy.
Ads do not absolutely have to be delivered via pop ups or modals.
I was fine with ads when they were a text AdSense banner.
Now a lot of sites have scammy full page js-popups of the kind that were only found on dodgy websites in the 90s.
I would care if they were at all capable of respecting people who allow ads.
I'd be fine with a whole web free of revenue.
There would be much less stuff around, but what would stay is the things people created for fun, not for profit. SEO spam, AI slop - these are all solved by removing money from the web.
> Ads are content too, you know?
I agree. Why there isn’t this technology implemented on film streaming, movie theaters, even games? I think ebooks should stop you reading every five minutes just to show ads. I’m sure it could be implemented in to PDF pretty easily.
Internet and all medias point is to make money for jesus christ, what are we, a charity? Why don’t book publishers put ads into printed books, they are goving away content for free!
> Ads are content too, you know?
Yes, and I’m not against ads in general.
It’s about the balance of actual content (the user wants to read and cares about) and ads/popups the site owner needs to run the site or generate some kind of income. If the user has to click away numerous things to be able to see any “real” content, then something’s clearly wrong. We’ve gone from showing ads to support the site to generating just enough content for the site to make the user visit and show them ads.
Sad times.