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A lot of sites wouldn’t exist without ads, because they want their stuff to be freely-accessible and don’t have any other revenue streams. It would also cut off lower income people that couldn’t afford to pay.
The only business models that have really worked online have been:
If ads go away, a lot of sites/services would have to become paid services, and smaller ones might just shut down entirely. We’d end up with even more consolidation of the market.
There’s a shot of irony in there… Google doesn’t monetize poor people highly at all, but the poor people get “free” access with ads because some richer people also allow themselves to see the ads. What kind of communism is that?
It’s the same way that taxes work. Rich people contribute more than poorer people, but everyone can use things funded by public money (parks, police, fire fighters, public transport, schools, health care outside the USA, etc).
I actually wonder if there should be more taxpayer-funded online services. Lemmy’s development was partially funded by government money (NLNet Foundation via the European Commission) for example.
I think donation/investment based freemium is the future of internet content once the bots kill ad viability
I’ve tried that before, but barely anyone donates. People expect the world for free.
Once something is perceived as free as the internet has been for ever. It is very hard to get people to pay for it.