Comment by 1vuio0pswjnm7

"What if we banned all advertising?"

This sounds like someone who was born intoo an era of internet advertising. As opposed to someone who has been expoosed to adevrtising over many forms of media, the internet being only a recent addition.

The early internet had no advertising. Commercial use of the computer network against the rules.

The web-based companies comprising "Big Tech", while they dominate today's internet by acting as allegedly "necessary" intermediaries and conducting surveillance, appear to have no viable business model to stay "big" in this scenario: where the computer network does not allow advertising, let alone commercial use.

Thus, the question "What if we banned all advertising" sounds extreme, unrealistic, the product of myopia, all-or-nothing thinking. Advertising will always be "legal". But historically man has regulated where it can be disseminated/placed.

A more interesting question might be "What if we had a computer network where advertising was prohibited or limited". About 35 years ago we did. Then the rules against commercial use were removed. Now people are complaining. People who never used the network in the time before advertising was allowed.

Imagine what it would be like to have a computer network without advertising using the computer and networking technology we have today.

Maybe this network could be built on top of the internet, as an overlay.

Make no mistake, there will always be computer internetworks that allow advertising. But the first ones didn't. And there could be ones in the future that don't.