Is this true though? (I’m really curious what people think)
I would point out two things:
Virtually every single person who is accessing the internet also has adequate computing power to host something on the internet. Of course it costs money, but this is money we’re already spending on computers and our ISP subscription. Your internet connection is a two-way street, of course.
The vast, vast majority of content on the internet is already created for free. Every user on this forum is creating free content for example, and nearly every user on Reddit, Twitter, Mastodon, Facebook, etc.
Is anything actually stopping people from building the tools to allow people to easily publish to the web for free, besides the fact that building those tools would be less profitable than building a Web 2.0 social media site, and therefore nobody really did it?
I don’t think we will return to the old internet, but I don’t think the reason is financial. I think the real reason is that most people would just rather have a centralized internet that gives them instant gratification at the click of a button than a world wide web that’s actually useful, unfortunately.
Yeah, like, there are various webhost-y products that have free offerings with limitations compared to the same product’s paid version. It’s only financial in the “we want to monetise the shit out of users” sense lol
Yeah pretty much. People want their discoverability, they don’t want to go through webrings or search engines – isn’t there an article from a couple years back that showed young people are more likely to use tiktok as search than a more traditional web search?
I would like to point out that hosting is not just computing power and internet connection. It involves optimization of routes traffic takes, content delivery, moderation, DDoS protection, network security, infrastructure security, etc. at both individual level and scale. The average internet user cannot self-host as of now. Maybe some form of decentralized hosting that distributes the entire web over its users? (Similar to some blockchain systems)
I strongly disagree. Most of the content on the internet is NOT created free. There is someone who is always paying for the internet you visit, either with the effort to create the content, to moderate the content, to curate the content, or to host and serve the content. It might be that some tools offer free web hosting or limited free plans, some authors who give their content out for free, but those are sponsored by paying users of the software, by corporations/organizations/governments that buy licenses for the software, institutions that hire the experts allowing them resources to create and distribute their content for free, and fund new research. I do think a huge opportunity was lost during the creation of Web 2 to make it decentralized and distributed with shared costs instead of centralized, subsidized, and monetized by certain institutions/organizations/corporations.
Yeah (Link) . Of course, there is a larger discussion here about how our society is structured, what it incentivizes, etc. I don’t think it is entirely fair to say people “want” instant gratification, and instead talk about how we as a society have pushed users into wanting instant gratification. This is very related to Marx’s idea of superstructures, but it would become wildly off-topic to discuss sociology here
Sure, but how much of that content is good? There is a lot of good free content, but there is also a deluge of garbage free content. And I would argue, that oftentimes, the best content requires professionals to create it, meaning that it costs money (think journalism, science, etc). While anyone can create content, not everybody can create good content.
I’d say that on average the “content that’s produced for free for its own sake” is of much higher quality than the “content that’s produced for ad money” - think of all the SEO spam sites and clickbait and ragebait “journalism”.
Yeah, that is kind of what I was getting at too. The vast majority of content I read on the internet comes from sites like Privacy Guides or Wikipedia, personal blogs people just create because they want to, or academic resources which are going to be created without profit-seeking regardless of the internet.
I cringe when someone says that ads are important because running a site costs money.
There are absolutely phenomenal projects like GrapheneOS, DivestOS, NewPipe, LibreTube, F-Droid, etc. that are completely free, without ads, and rely on donations. These projects are a lot bigger than a simple site, and they don’t need to shove ads down your throat.
If your site provides a lot of value to the visitor, you will very likely receive enough donations to cover the costs of a simple site. There is no excuse for shoving ads down people’s throats and sharing their data with 100000000000000+ “partners.”
I also got an idea, what if sites would allow you to create anonymous accounts, like Mullvad and IVPN, that you could pay for anonymously with cash or cryptocurrency to get access to the site? That would be a decent way to monetize the content.
People seem to be misinterpreting what I said. I simply said that good content often requires the work of professionals and thus money to fund it. I didn’t say that ads were the only way of obtaining such revenue.
By the way, the fact that examples of projects that rely on donations exist doesn’t mean that this model is viable for all (or even most) endeavours and/or in all situations.
I should clarify that I strongly dislike ads. I am in no way a fan of them. However, I’m not going to be unrealistic and say that all (or even most) of the content that I interact with on a daily basis would be possible if it was truly for free or relied only on donations.
That’s fair and I love projects like Wikipedia, they are really important. Unfortunately, not all content can be made like that (journalism comes to mind particularly)
I live in a country with around 2.5 million people. There is a journalist who makes investigative journalism videos in our native language, he receives over a 20k euros every month on Patreon. Why? Because the value that he provides is worth every penny that the Patreon subscription costs.
It all depends on how good you’re at the thing you’re doing and how much value you provide to people.
Yes, not everything can rely on donations, I’m fine with any model as long as it’s not ads or being a publicly traded corporation. VC funding is a gray area for me. But these first two should vanish and never come back again.
I don’t have a problem with ads inherently. Ads were used before in newspapers and television before they had any real way of tracking you, the consumer. On the current web though, most Ad providers will track as much as they are legally allowed to get away with (and then some) because it is much more profitable to do so. Google Ads weren’t even that invasive when they first came around. Along with that, most of the content I consume comes from people who’s revenue comes from auto ad placements on YouTube or such, or brand deals that put ads into the content. I don’t think they would be able to make a living without those ads, nor would they be making the type of content they are making if they weren’t making a living off of the content.
I also don’t think its financially viable for most people to host their own content outside of written word. Blogs are relatively cheap to host, but most free hosting options are subsidized by either paying users, or ads. Video content is INSANELY expensive to host, as many old school video creators from the early times will tell you, or anyone who has a moderately popular PeerTube instance. I don’t really know how sites like Rumble, Odysee, etc are alive besides VC funding, but that is a different discussion.
And this does not even take into account the fact that wealth inequality all over the world is widening, making it harder for people to spend discretionary funds if they even have any at all. Unless we overhaul society, I don’t have a problem with ads as long as we can figure out a way to regulate Ad Tech so it isn’t a privacy nightmare, along with every other piece of tech.
Honestly I just wish projects like Flattr from Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay or more recently, the Basic Attention Token from Brave would become mainstream. I believe the majority of people want to pay for content and support their creators. That’s why Patreon and Kickstarter are so massive.
People don’t mind paying for content when the cost seems fair to them and they see the direct impact of their payments. It also helps when you are getting exactly what you pay for, i.e. I pay $5 a month and I have no ads on my favorite website versus I pay $130 a month for cable and only watch a handful of the shows.
The “pay what you want” business model is tried and proven but as usual old greedy business execs get scared off by the thought of losing a dollar or two.
I think this is missing the nuance behind “ads are important” (although no one in this thread said this I guess). The original point was either make the projects sustainable, or help them with revenue generation (even if it involves watching ads). Proton did a great write up on this sometime back (Link)
A lot of projects you listed actually depend on a specific big endowment instead of actually decentralized funding (Example), and are often in support of ads (knowing how actually most free services cannot survive on donations alone).
Anyway, internet it not just hosting websites. Starting from the hardware we use, to the browser, to the infrastructure, and finally the web content, is either heavily subsidized or severely underfunded. Do we pay for using Tor Browser/Firefox/Brave? For using Cloudflare networks? Do our donations run Certificate Authorities, standardization organizations, encryption research, and much more?
I think this is the most dangerous part of this conversation - The idea that people will automatically/magically realize the value of a project and fund it through donations. Most of the modern day infrastructure depends on libraries and tools written by developers whose work is now exploited by ungrateful corporations and individuals without any donation. The idea that a project that can garner enough publicity to fund itself is the only one worth surviving leads to problems like the xz backdoor. It also leaves the digital space vulnerable to takeovers by ideas and projects that can gain corporate/government/mass backing, but may not always be technically sound.
I don’t support advertisements, but I do support projects being sustainable, and if for that they need ads, I am fine with watching ads. At least till something better pops up.
The tech oligopoly has gotten a free ride from open source projects for too long and we will not allow large corporations to benefit from the labor of small community developers without paying their fair share.
Other licenses protect corporate interests or they deny any commercial use. We have decided on a new path. If you are a large organization you are obligated to pay developers of the software you are using or packaging. Full stop.
People who really want to make things will continue to make things regardless of it being profitable or not. The internet would not die if the entire ad industry suddenly imploded, it would only be reborn anew, better.
I don’t think we will return to the old internet, but I don’t think the reason is financial. I think the real reason is that most people would just rather have a centralized internet that gives them instant gratification at the click of a button than a world wide web that’s actually useful, unfortunately.
People prefer what is easiest and most convenient. This is also why Linux on the desktop has less than 5% market share.
. Of course, there is a larger discussion here about how our society is structured, what it incentivizes, etc. I don’t think it is entirely fair to say people “want” instant gratification, and instead talk about how we as a society have pushed users into wanting instant gratification. This is very related to 
