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There's no blog I know of that is worth any ads they may want to display. This broad acceptance of using ads to generate revenue has warped the internet. It encouraged tracking, and finding out as much personal details, use of AI, etc. Best thing we can do is block all ads.

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Hopefully you pay for the content you enjoy then?

many cases, I can't because it relies solely on the ad model. But paying for it really isn't the point, the whole point is advertising isn't semi benign like it was in broadcast TV / Newspapers of old. There is now massive incentive to essentially to target individuals specifically by gathering as much data about them and who they know and are influenced by and trying to predict / influence behavior. We have already seen when used for political advertising, it's been done for social engineering and influence the outcomes of elections in a way that is quite insidious. Weirdly, other than a minority, not many are worried about it because it is invisible. Mandate something to people, and there's a lot of yelling and screaming, but if you can do this without people feeling like they have been targeted, no problem!

I have some of these same feelings. But for me, those feelings are complimented by the conviction that without these kinds of monetization, the Internet would be largely useless. Of course, some might argue that this version of the Internet would be better for us as a society.

Regardless, in our capitalistic society, we couldn't enjoy things on the Internet without money flowing through it like this.

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