this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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A lot of sites wouldn't exist without ads, because they want their stuff to be freely-accessible and don't have any other revenue streams. It would also cut off lower income people that couldn't afford to pay.
The only business models that have really worked online have been:
If ads go away, a lot of sites/services would have to become paid services, and smaller ones might just shut down entirely. We'd end up with even more consolidation of the market.
I think donation/investment based freemium is the future of internet content once the bots kill ad viability
Yeah, my shareware did real well - 800 hours in development, $500 in income across the past 30 years. Oh, and it cost me $400 for the compiler tools back then - so my net profit is rolling in at $0.12 per hour invested.
That sounds like the vast majority of "app" developers.
These things are a casino market.
I've tried that before, but barely anyone donates. People expect the world for free.
We could live without anything that uses ads to "sustain" itself. Nobody hosting ads on their service is doing so to "maintain" themselves. They just want profit for their labour... they are entitled too, but its a business choice, never a necessity.
And yeah if I use something, I'll always pay for no ads. Ads cost so much more of our lifespans and contribute so fucking little to those that host them. Garbage.
I respect your take, but I think it is wrong.
There's a shot of irony in there... Google doesn't monetize poor people highly at all, but the poor people get "free" access with ads because some richer people also allow themselves to see the ads. What kind of communism is that?
It's the same way that taxes work. Rich people contribute more than poorer people, but everyone can use things funded by public money (parks, police, fire fighters, public transport, schools, health care outside the USA, etc).
I actually wonder if there should be more taxpayer-funded online services. Lemmy's development was partially funded by government money (NLNet Foundation via the European Commission) for example.