I've come to the conclusion that I have to put my money where my mouth is and pay for the websites I use. After all, running a website is not free, and it never was. Self-hosting, service-hosting, doesn't matter. Computer hardware costs money, internet service costs money, a good web developer costs money.

For decades we fooled ourselves into thinking that the internet is "free and open," and we still ardently defend it on that ground. And yet, that illusion was built off the back of the advertisement industry. We let them pay those costs for us, and now they want a return on their investment.

And don't get me wrong, ads were always poisoning the internet, for as long as I can remember. I saw "You're the one millionth visitor!" ads on computers in school. I've gotten viruses from insecure ad networks. I saw perfectly usable websites turn into an infinite billboard fighting to the death, with itself, for my attention.

Now I contribute to the Patreon my fediverse instance runs, the Patreons of creators whose content I like, and I plan to start up active donations to Wikipedia. I think it may not be possible to make the internet really free and open, maybe ever. But I think we could contribute to a healthier ecosystem if we - the users - took ads out of the equation of running a (non-profit-motivated) website.