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I've been using Firefox since the beginning, before that Mozilla, and before that Netscape Navigator.
But I think it's finally time to switch to Librewolf.
I don't want digital advertising of any kind, even if my privacy is "preserved" through fancy data-laundering.
They could just use non-personalized ads instead tbh. They do need to earn some money after all
They do need to earn some money after all
If every ad-supported website went dark today, nothing of value would be lost.
I don't agree. As a single counter example of many YouTube has a huge wealth of information and content.
Maybe that value isn't worth the ads, that is much harder to say for certain. But it is clear that there is some valuable information on some sites that are supported by ads.
Duckduckgo manages to have privacy respecting ads. I really value that. If you're searching cars, cars pop up, they don't look at your history or anything else. Unobtrusive and you can look away
That's a nice thought.
Then you suddenly realize no one knows up from down or down from up. Society would shift on such a massive scale people would probably just stick their smartphones in a drawer and only use them to message people they already know personally and check them a few times a day like an answering machine.
Then suddenly you realize you haven't heard about Ukraine, Russia, Israel or Palestine in months. It's November 28th and you heard someone mention a 'new president' but you didn't even vote. Shit, you forgot to vote. There were no social media or news websites reminding you about the election and you didn't have it on your new wall calendar yet! Ah that's what all those "Vote Now!!!" yard signs were about, fuck....
It's a nice thought, but the internet is powered by ads. (Almost?) Every subscription-supported website is also ad-supported. The internet would basically go under. AFAIK all the Lemmy apps have ads too. It'd be a nice change to get back to get a force shove back to the early-mid 90's. Maybe we'd do things differently. People would certainly be outside talking to each other a lot more.
This sounds like the kind of thing a Zoomer who has no memory of life before the Internet -- or the Internet of the '90s before the advertisers got a hold of it, for that matter -- would write.
AFAIK all the Lemmy apps have ads too.
LOL, nope. Try getting your apps from F-Droid instead of the Google Play Store.
Genuine questions: If we get rid of all the ads, how do news companies get funded? Information can be freely copied and redistributed online -- including all news articles. How would our favorite tech sites be funded?
I'll be honest, I donate every chance I get to support devs for the awesome free software and services they provide, but news is different. I don't actually pay for any news. It comes from so many sources. What's the best financial model for news companies in a capitalist society? As a consumer, what's the ethical model for paying for or consuming news?
I, for one, do not welcome any form of advertising.