Comment by autoexec

> The internet would be vastly different if there were no ads because the amount of content would be greatly reduced.

In terms of quantity it wouldn't be noticeable to you at all. It'd still be more than you could ever consume in your lifetime. I saw the internet before ads and it was still filled with just about everything you see today. The content itself was actually better in many cases (technical limitations being what they were). It was certainly less harmful.

The only thing I really think we'd have to worry about losing is some of the youtube content made with extremely high production costs but even some of those channels started out producing the same content with lower production values and slowly improved the presentation as their channel grew which could still happen without ads through donations and other strategies.

The vast majority of the content we'd lose on the internet without ads is the stuff companies put out there for no reason other than because they want to make money, as it turns out, that stuff is mostly trash anyway. It's what brought us click bait, entire content farms of trash, the millions of AI generated websites filled with hallucinations that drown out the actual information you're looking for, etc.

Getting rid of ads on the internet wouldn't make all the bad stuff would go away though. Companies already often have other perverse incentives for putting stuff on the internet, but at least we wouldn't be getting the obnoxious ads and surveillance capitalism on top of that.