Maybe this is the equivalent of defending ethical capitalism, but an ad-supported model can enable poor users to access content they couldn’t afford if it were paid.
That is a problem, because what I tell people all the time is that your data is money. Ad services also serves as a tracking service, and as such gets paid from two directions: from advertisers and mass collection of data.
The problem with both is that they have been devalued in a race to the bottom, mostly thanks to ads swarming the web in the early 2000s.
This also solidifies Google’s monopoly, because now all advertiser’s have to go through them, as well as Meta or other social networking platforms - which all have their own tracking and ad services.
It’s not just poor people, it’s also underage people. If you need a credit card or something to search the Internet, a minor simply wouldn’t have access unless their parents allowed it, and parents would have an incentive to monitor those search results.
I also don’t like the idea of paid search being the norm because it gives a direct tie between my searches and my identity, unless the company goes out of its way to protect my privacy (i.e. Mullvad does that for their VPN, but most other VPN providers don’t). Kagi is the only paid search I know of and they claim to not store search history, but I haven’t seen any proof (their search engine isn’t open, AFAIK they haven’t published audit results, etc). Their pricing model also sucks imo, but that’s probably because they’re new.
I would like an ad-free tier or service, but a “free” service should exist.
My main concern here is accommodating minors, and gift card reloads seems to be the most common way to do that. But I really don’t see someone going to the store to get reloads for a search service, they’re just going to use something ad supported.
I think search really needs to be free, so if we’re going to eliminate ads, it either needs to be bundled with a non free service people are willing to pay for, or it’s a nonprofit that people are willing to support.
If I were doing it, I’d bundle it with a VPN service, and perhaps have search queries take longer after some cap. So you’d pay like $10/month for VPN, VPN-enabled browser, search service, private email, password manager, and some amount of encrypted storage. Basically, bundle Mullvad browser, Kagi search, and Bitwarden password manager into one price.
However, that doesn’t solve access for minors. So maybe a nonprofit is the way to go. IDK.
I’m grieving for the internet we could have had if the advertising revenue model hadn’t existed for the last 20 years.
Who knows how we would have solved the “getting paid” problem, but we would have, with technologies and revenue models that you and I are not aware of because they don’t exist.
Ah, I see. Basically what would’ve happened had Google and Yahoo not become dominant. But to get there, you’d need to go back ~30 years, or maybe more, because Yahoo was serving ads in the 90s.
I also long for the days of the early Internet where most sites were made by enthusiasts and there really wasn’t much commercial presence. However, back then, the Internet was the domain of universities, so unless you worked at or attended a university, you just didn’t have access to the Internet. Things change a lot when you go from a relatively small set of users to a large set of users.
So instead of thinking about what could’ve been, I like to think about what unique opportunities we have. People are connected 24/7 these days, which means distributed systems are actually feasible. So instead of paying some central search service, you’d donate some CPU, memory, and disk to a distributed search platform and you’d be able to make searches without any central servers. I’m actually building a Reddit/Lemmy-like service in exactly this way where everyone stores a certain amount of data on their machines and serves it as needed to their peers. This way there’s no revenue model needed because there’s no infrastructure costs, so it can be run by volunteers or with a small amount of donations.
Maybe this is the equivalent of defending ethical capitalism, but an ad-supported model can enable poor users to access content they couldn’t afford if it were paid.
That is a problem, because what I tell people all the time is that your data is money. Ad services also serves as a tracking service, and as such gets paid from two directions: from advertisers and mass collection of data.
The problem with both is that they have been devalued in a race to the bottom, mostly thanks to ads swarming the web in the early 2000s.
This also solidifies Google’s monopoly, because now all advertiser’s have to go through them, as well as Meta or other social networking platforms - which all have their own tracking and ad services.
People are getting grifted, big time.
No, that’s just how it appears through the advertising revenue model.
Bear in mind this model has been actively developed over the last 20+ years. Imagine of other models enjoyed that kind of attention.
Consumers pay for ads in product costs. Access for poor people is a myth.
If you are too poor to consume the advertised items/services then the actual customers of those products/services are paying for your access.
I personally use an ad-blocker, but I only hate ads because they can be a vector for malware. P.s. I also use StartPage as my search engine of choice.
It’s not just poor people, it’s also underage people. If you need a credit card or something to search the Internet, a minor simply wouldn’t have access unless their parents allowed it, and parents would have an incentive to monitor those search results.
I also don’t like the idea of paid search being the norm because it gives a direct tie between my searches and my identity, unless the company goes out of its way to protect my privacy (i.e. Mullvad does that for their VPN, but most other VPN providers don’t). Kagi is the only paid search I know of and they claim to not store search history, but I haven’t seen any proof (their search engine isn’t open, AFAIK they haven’t published audit results, etc). Their pricing model also sucks imo, but that’s probably because they’re new.
I would like an ad-free tier or service, but a “free” service should exist.
Subscriptions and cards seem like the only alternatives because nothing else has been developed/ evolved for 20 years.
What about instant micropayments of $0.001 or something. Im loathe to suggest crypto, but there’s potential.
I think patrons style sponsorships have their place too.
My main concern here is accommodating minors, and gift card reloads seems to be the most common way to do that. But I really don’t see someone going to the store to get reloads for a search service, they’re just going to use something ad supported.
I think search really needs to be free, so if we’re going to eliminate ads, it either needs to be bundled with a non free service people are willing to pay for, or it’s a nonprofit that people are willing to support.
If I were doing it, I’d bundle it with a VPN service, and perhaps have search queries take longer after some cap. So you’d pay like $10/month for VPN, VPN-enabled browser, search service, private email, password manager, and some amount of encrypted storage. Basically, bundle Mullvad browser, Kagi search, and Bitwarden password manager into one price.
However, that doesn’t solve access for minors. So maybe a nonprofit is the way to go. IDK.
We’re kind of talking about different things.
You’re talking about solving ads now in 2023.
I’m grieving for the internet we could have had if the advertising revenue model hadn’t existed for the last 20 years.
Who knows how we would have solved the “getting paid” problem, but we would have, with technologies and revenue models that you and I are not aware of because they don’t exist.
Ah, I see. Basically what would’ve happened had Google and Yahoo not become dominant. But to get there, you’d need to go back ~30 years, or maybe more, because Yahoo was serving ads in the 90s.
I also long for the days of the early Internet where most sites were made by enthusiasts and there really wasn’t much commercial presence. However, back then, the Internet was the domain of universities, so unless you worked at or attended a university, you just didn’t have access to the Internet. Things change a lot when you go from a relatively small set of users to a large set of users.
So instead of thinking about what could’ve been, I like to think about what unique opportunities we have. People are connected 24/7 these days, which means distributed systems are actually feasible. So instead of paying some central search service, you’d donate some CPU, memory, and disk to a distributed search platform and you’d be able to make searches without any central servers. I’m actually building a Reddit/Lemmy-like service in exactly this way where everyone stores a certain amount of data on their machines and serves it as needed to their peers. This way there’s no revenue model needed because there’s no infrastructure costs, so it can be run by volunteers or with a small amount of donations.