• taladar@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    The internet isn’t built on it. The commercial websites who do not have other products (as in all the websites related to RL goods, stores,…) are.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Exactly. If every ad-dependent website went offline tomorrow and all we were left with was Wikipedia, PeerTube, government/academia sites and a bunch of Geocities-esque “labor of love” hobbyist pages, nothing of value would be lost.

      • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        True, but my point was that even a lot of the commercial websites that do have other products do not depend on ads, e.g. Amazon and all the other stores would still be there, every company offering a paid service would still be there, every company providing a service related to their RL goods (e.g. specs, drivers, product descriptions, lists of stores where you can buy them,…) would still be there.

        Advertising does not finance a very large percentage of the useful parts of the internet. And among those advertising financed websites that are useful a lot are essentially duplicates to get a chunk of the ad revenue without doing a lot of work (e.g. almost all news websites that just republish AP, Reuters,… content).