this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
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me_irl
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Back in the day, piracy sites were relatively flooded with ads. Being exposed to many&sketchy ads was part of the cost of 'free' while the official sites had fewer and had higher standards for what advertisers they allowed.
Now piracy sites have a few annoying banners and fake download buttons, but it's mostly just porn. Meanwhile the real sites are plastered to the point where content is crowded out and like 3/4ths of the ads are scams. There's one on YouTube right now about a miracle disease cure claiming to be in the bible and it's been running for over two weeks now; not to mention all the AI slop scams and malware.
It's kind of absurd how shit the web has gotten as it was corporatized and monetized. Even the word "web" hardly applies anymore.
Many have forgotten what was lost, or never knew. Cyberspace was wonderful once.