What would the internet without ads have evolved into?

[starcar]

Let's assume somehow the use of any type of advertising was banned. Would the internet suck less  than it does now? I mean the early internet for those who remember was a real  treasure trove of information run by enthusiasts/hobbyists that really cared about the stuff they were blogging about and it wasn't about money. Now there is so much misinformation, lies useless copypaste articles with clickbait titles and low ethics influencers (remember those "it's just a prank bro"?) doing anything just to get money from your eyeballs or for you to buy the next best sex enhancement drug, that I really wonder would the internet have been a better place without those even if it meant that stuff like youtube and tiktok could not exist in it's current form

 

 

One thing is for certain. Dicktokers assaulting innocent people as a prank wouldn't be a thing. I mean youd have to be evil and stupid to pay to watch that.

[MultiGamerClub]

More paywalls and "1 dollar access" websites.. Uhh.. Probably not a pleasant type of future.

[Alex Atkin UK]

YouTube would have died for one.

[Rex Hite]

It might have become a non commercial space. The way a city park is a space to play, have a picnic, and do other activities that don't require commercial influence to function. But all access to that park is via toll roads; the ISP, which would likely be a commercial business.

It would be smaller with much less reach, and that would be fine.

[1518]

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

YouTube would have died for one.

I think Youtube Premium would of come earlier and would cost more 

[MultiGamerClub]

4 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

YouTube would have died for one.

Would probably charge you for uploading and still charge you monthly fees to just STORE videos.. Looks at pewdiepie's thousand of videos..

 

Also probably more bad things.. Like blocking access unless you pay to use their services.

 

Not so good things.

[GhostRoadieBL]

So many pay walls it would force sites to have value over views

Mainstream media would take over most sources of info because they have other sources of revenue.

Probably wouldn't have flat earthers though so that's a bonus

[Roswell]

I’m not sure what you were looking at in the 90s but sites were littered with arguably more ads than there are now.

 

People blogged into the void without compensation because at the time, the idea of a worldwide audience was novel. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 minutes ago, 1518 said:

I think Youtube Premium would of come earlier and would cost more 

Yes, but if it was mandatory then the site would never have been as popular as it is.  I don't think LTT would ever have existed, or at least would have just been a website with far less views.

A big reason why building a competing site is not practical is that EVERYONE knows YouTube, its where people already are and so where you will get discovered.  That wouldn't be the case if it was subscription only.

[1518]

5 minutes ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

So many pay walls it would force sites to have value over views

Mainstream media would take over most sources of info because they have other sources of revenue.

Probably wouldn't have flat earthers though so that's a bonus

You might get people finding ways around it (more than there is now.)

[starcar]

Just now, 1518 said:

You might get people finding ways around it (more than there is now.)

yeah just like piracy someone with one account could just scoop up all the content and publish for free. It's not like the piratebay was made to make money or anything

[Rex Hite]

And there'd be just as much toxicity as a percentage of content as now, it just wouldn't be monetised. That alone might be a small solace.

[GhostRoadieBL]

34 minutes ago, starcar said:

yeah just like piracy someone with one account could just scoop up all the content and publish for free. It's not like the piratebay was made to make money or anything

That only lasts as long as the source makes money, piracy is still a thing because the margin on pirated items is so high the companies can afford the losses to piracy

Remove ad revenue from written media and there's free re-posting taking away their pay, not going to stay online long or they'll find other ways to block it

[dilpickle]

Without ads the internet would be nowhere near as useful as it is today.

 

It would have stayed what it was in the early days: a place for educational institutions and computer nerds.

 

If paywalls were the norm from the beginning its hard to say what would have happened. Would there be enough customers to attract enough companies to build out the infrastructure?

 

Like any technology you have to take the good with the bad.

 

Related: I've noticed in the last few months that a lot news sites are going to paywalls even local news. There was a brief flirtation with paywalls in the early days but everyone realized that no one was going to pay for anything so they all went with ads. But I guess that model is reaching its end.

[Natani]

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

YouTube would have died for one.

good, yt is full of trash and bs anyways lol

[LogicalDrm]

You have very sugarcoated look on early internet. If its late-90s to 00s internet we are talking about. If its early 90s when browser were bought, then you might have something going on, I wouldn't know. I've been on the internet only for 25 years (I'm 33yo).

 

Ads are easy way to get funds. Using internet costs money. So first obvious result would be much higher costs on ISP side of things. Keeping services and sites running costs money. Just running blog costs something to someone. Even if its not the creator who has ads. Then its the host who needs to pay for bandwidth and electricity. Would it be covered by selling your data without your consent? Or by having extra fees to enter service/site? Or even more costs on ISP side to cover your access fees?

[starcar]

2 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

Ads are easy way to get funds. Using internet costs money. So first obvious result would be much higher costs on ISP side of things. Keeping services and sites running costs money. Just running blog costs something to someone. Even if its not the creator who has ads. Then its the host who needs to pay for bandwidth and electricity. Would it be covered by selling your data without your consent? Or by having extra fees to enter service/site? Or even more costs on ISP side to cover your access fees?

What are you talking about? Isp's dont make money from ads, they charge you a subscription fee. What do ads have to do with that? Only Data intensive sites like youtube would be limited in their functioning.

[QuantumSingularity]

20 hours ago, starcar said:

Let's assume somehow the use of any type of advertising was banned. Would the internet suck less  than it does now? I mean the early internet for those who remember was a real  treasure trove of information run by enthusiasts/hobbyists that really cared about the stuff they were blogging about and it wasn't about money. Now there is so much misinformation, lies useless copypaste articles with clickbait titles and low ethics influencers (remember those "it's just a prank bro"?) doing anything just to get money from your eyeballs or for you to buy the next best sex enhancement drug, that I really wonder would the internet have been a better place without those even if it meant that stuff like youtube and tiktok could not exist in it's current form

 

 

One thing is for certain. Dicktokers assaulting innocent people as a prank wouldn't be a thing. I mean youd have to be evil and stupid to pay to watch that.

You are describing basically what the Internet used to be when i first started exploring it back in 1998-1999. IRC chat rooms, sites made on NotePad by people who were just passionate about their topic, FTP servers which were like trading markets, no censorship or information filtering. And most of is did it for the pure excitement of it, not for money or fame. You could browse everywhere w/o the need to register or login. It was wild, great and terrifying at the same time. One moment watching someone who shared his cat pics, next one 2 huge boobs slap you in the face, right after that you stumble upon the aftermath of a helicopter propeller meeting some poor soul's head with a confused boner from the boobs you saw just 5 secs ago. Even if we get rid of all the ads, the wild and truly free internet will never get back.     

[MultiGamerClub]

1 hour ago, QuantumSingularity said:

You are describing basically what the Internet used to be when i first started exploring it back in 1998-1999. IRC chat rooms, sites made on NotePad by people who were just passionate about their topic, FTP servers which were like trading markets, no censorship or information filtering. And most of is did it for the pure excitement of it, not for money or fame. You could browse everywhere w/o the need to register or login. It was wild, great and terrifying at the same time. One moment watching someone who shared his cat pics, next one 2 huge boobs slap you in the face, right after that you stumble upon the aftermath of a helicopter propeller meeting some poor soul's head with a confused boner from the boobs you saw just 5 secs ago. Even if we get rid of all the ads, the wild and truly free internet will never get back.     

Got to browse this exact thing when i was 7 (2003) on my family's home computer.. Remember it being a big towering HP case hooked up to a nokia monitor.

Good times.

 

One moment im looking at cat pics and another i found terrorist bombings.

Lost privilege to the computer on day 6

 

Insane era thats hard to forget.

Wish i knew cs 1.6 earlier in my life when it came out.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On 2/15/2022 at 5:51 PM, QuantumSingularity said:

You are describing basically what the Internet used to be when i first started exploring it back in 1998-1999. IRC chat rooms, sites made on NotePad by people who were just passionate about their topic, FTP servers which were like trading markets, no censorship or information filtering. And most of is did it for the pure excitement of it, not for money or fame. You could browse everywhere w/o the need to register or login. It was wild, great and terrifying at the same time. One moment watching someone who shared his cat pics, next one 2 huge boobs slap you in the face, right after that you stumble upon the aftermath of a helicopter propeller meeting some poor soul's head with a confused boner from the boobs you saw just 5 secs ago. Even if we get rid of all the ads, the wild and truly free internet will never get back.     

I don't think that aspect ever went away, it just got drowned out by corporate interests.  Most search engines want to make money so prioritise results that accordingly.

It also hasn't helped that search engines try to predict what you meant, rather than taking your key words at face value.

[LogicalDrm]

On 2/15/2022 at 3:54 PM, starcar said:

What are you talking about? Isp's dont make money from ads, they charge you a subscription fee. What do ads have to do with that? Only Data intensive sites like youtube would be limited in their functioning.

Oh boy, lack of imagination, I see.

 

You asked what would happen if there were no ads on the internet. Not how things work now. From your question, I thought you were talking about how internet would have evolved if ads weren't a way for sites to get funds needed to run them. ISPs, or what we currently know as ISPs sell right to use internet and allow you to access sites. They also sell same thing to those services, allowing them to be hosted on the internet. Is it too hard to imagine that someone who sells to both ends would cut deals with one of them? More customers to get priority access and so on.

 

Wait, not so hard to imagine. Thats pretty much what net neutrality is about.

[rockyroller]

I believe it would have remained a creative hub of talent performing their art and ideas for free because they knew they were good or had great ideas and wanted to show the world.

I would say a lot of the current pay for content tends to fall into the lowest of standards because if you can sell garbage you make garbage as it is easier.

 

[thrasher_565]

On 2/14/2022 at 1:46 PM, Roswell said:

I’m not sure what you were looking at in the 90s but sites were littered with arguably more ads than there are now.

 

People blogged into the void without compensation because at the time, the idea of a worldwide audience was novel. 

oh the amount of AS  S i had to go thru just to get a free game (not saying it was bad...as   s)...

On 2/15/2022 at 3:01 AM, LogicalDrm said:

You have very sugarcoated look on early internet. If its late-90s to 00s internet we are talking about. If its early 90s when browser were bought, then you might have something going on, I wouldn't know. I've been on the internet only for 25 years (I'm 33yo).

 

Ads are easy way to get funds. Using internet costs money. So first obvious result would be much higher costs on ISP side of things. Keeping services and sites running costs money. Just running blog costs something to someone. Even if its not the creator who has ads. Then its the host who needs to pay for bandwidth and electricity. Would it be covered by selling your data without your consent? Or by having extra fees to enter service/site? Or even more costs on ISP side to cover your access fees?

well i think paying for cable was a thing and paying for internet was a new thing so people put ads to pay for there trash site... any extra when to more pc parts..not to live off of it like today. as expanding cost alot for space and speed.

[LogicalDrm]

2 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

well i think paying for cable was a thing and paying for internet was a new thing so people put ads to pay for there trash site... any extra when to more pc parts..not to live off of it like today. as expanding cost alot for space and speed.

OPs question is still about hypothetical modern day. If all the things, or most of the things we currently have remain, just without ad revenue, then I think my though is still valid. If the development would have taken another route, then yours would be more likely.

[thrasher_565]

6 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

OPs question is still about hypothetical modern day. If all the things, or most of the things we currently have remain, just without ad revenue, then I think my though is still valid. If the development would have taken another route, then yours would be more likely.

ya its like fallout but with the internet who knows