I agree with the majority of what you speculate about concerning the effects of an ad-oriented internet, although I keep seeing very good science and engineering content produced exclusively for the web and paid for through a mix of advertising and some form of sales (merchandise, the right to access early content, etc.).
The Mozilla Foundation publishes excellent articles on privacy on the web in their newsletter and then actually takes action, as does the Electronic Frontier Foundation; those would be good groups to contribute to if you want to support action against advertisers.
Finally, since I dislike ads but work in the advertising industry, I’ve thought of ways to reconcile the right to earn capital in a capitalist system, which is supported by advertising because it sways people’s purchasing patterns, with the right to freedom of choice which many of us feel we inherently possess and which is threatened by advertising, which sways our purchasing patterns (especially painful is the fact that “successful” advertising often exploits behavioural biases and causes targets to make suboptimal choices, like spending more money than they can afford to).
For the last few years, I’ve entertained the idea of turning the tables completely by having machine agents seek out ads on behalf the consumer. Inspiration comes from human behaviour: if someone close to you knows you need new shoes, and they know your preferences, and they know your budget constraints, they can make pretty good recommendations—parents even go ahead and buy things without further discussion, often hunting for discounts and making a lot of comparisons, shielding the child from the negative effects of advertising. An agent would do the same thing for the consumer: knowing their needs, preferences, and spending practices, it would actively keep an eye on relevant ads and only surface information about those it considers relevant. This may require more generalized artificial intelligence than currently exists, though.
I agree with the majority of what you speculate about concerning the effects of an ad-oriented internet, although I keep seeing very good science and engineering content produced exclusively for the web and paid for through a mix of advertising and some form of sales (merchandise, the right to access early content, etc.).
The Mozilla Foundation publishes excellent articles on privacy on the web in their newsletter and then actually takes action, as does the Electronic Frontier Foundation; those would be good groups to contribute to if you want to support action against advertisers.
Finally, since I dislike ads but work in the advertising industry, I’ve thought of ways to reconcile the right to earn capital in a capitalist system, which is supported by advertising because it sways people’s purchasing patterns, with the right to freedom of choice which many of us feel we inherently possess and which is threatened by advertising, which sways our purchasing patterns (especially painful is the fact that “successful” advertising often exploits behavioural biases and causes targets to make suboptimal choices, like spending more money than they can afford to).
For the last few years, I’ve entertained the idea of turning the tables completely by having machine agents seek out ads on behalf the consumer. Inspiration comes from human behaviour: if someone close to you knows you need new shoes, and they know your preferences, and they know your budget constraints, they can make pretty good recommendations—parents even go ahead and buy things without further discussion, often hunting for discounts and making a lot of comparisons, shielding the child from the negative effects of advertising. An agent would do the same thing for the consumer: knowing their needs, preferences, and spending practices, it would actively keep an eye on relevant ads and only surface information about those it considers relevant. This may require more generalized artificial intelligence than currently exists, though.