Comment by Marsymars
9 days ago
I think there are a variety of potential solutions, but one where the public marketplace is taxed/polluted by a private entity in a way that can't be avoided isn't an acceptable status quo.
Requiring FB to provide a paid ad-free option with a price commensurate with their cost of providing service would be one approach. Prohibiting them from actively breaking adblockers would be another. I wouldn't wholesale ban ads, but banning them on FB marketplace would be reasonable - either we get an ad-free marketplace, or FB abandons the product and we get alternatives.
They have a paid ad-free option in Europe. Nobody pays for it at all. Same with every company ever that does that (YouTube, Reddit - this is a tiny fraction of their customers).
Preventing them from blocking adblockers is effectively the same thing as banning ads in that it destroys revenue. Remember that that would impact all parts of the internet, even the companies without the resources of Meta. So maybe a company the scale of Meta weathers a policy like this - but many smaller advertising based businesses would not. So effectively, you would be driving even more consolidation of power in the industry and the acceleration of the decline of the open internet.
Also - no ads on marketplace? I personally do like using marketplace vs the alternative (Craigslist), and personally I would prefer that stays available for me to use (and for free).
> Preventing them from blocking adblockers is effectively the same thing as banning ads in that it destroys revenue. Remember that that would impact all parts of the internet, even the companies without the resources of Meta.
I'm only suggesting preventing Meta from blocking adblockers. (And the world would likely be a better place if Meta's revenue were destroyed — but I expect they would do just fine without blocking ad-blockers — basically every other property on the web does.)
> Also - no ads on marketplace? I personally do like using marketplace vs the alternative (Craigslist), and personally I would prefer that stays available for me to use (and for free).
So maybe your jurisdiction has multiple online marketplaces and needs less regulation around them. Mine does not. It's akin to having a single consumer-hostile utility/telecom/railroad/etc. provider.