The internet runs on ads.
Ad companies pay for all the “free” popular social media we use. Ad companies dictate to social media what their clients want their ads to be associated with, not associated with, and drive media of all kinds to push inflammatory and click-bait content that drives engagement and views. It’s why you indirectly can’t swear, talk about suicide, drugs, death, or violence. Sure, you technically can unless ToS prohibits it, but if companies tell their ad hosts they don’t want to be associated with someone talking about guns, the content discussing guns gets fewer ads, fewer ads = less revenue, low-revenue gets pushed to the bottom.
So lowbrow political rage bait, science denialism, and fake conspiracies drives people to interact and then gets pushed to the top because it gets ad revenue. Content that delves into critical thought and requires introspection or contemplation languishes.
Ads are destroying society because stupid and rage sells views.
So you don’t think journalists should be paid for their work?
So you think news should be a privilege for the rich?
those of us who can afford to should pay for the news. for those of us who can’t afford it, there are a lot of ways around paywalls.
Journalists are being silenced by their work being behind paywalls. I am stretching the meaning of the word “work” here on account of today’s LLMs doing the heavy lifting. I have grown skeptical of journalists consistently putting out organic prose.
Are we stealing their lunch by copying a whole article to discuss something in a niche online community? I can get past some paywalls by disabling Javascript for that site and I’ll still see ads. I’ll gladly steal the toothpick shoved through an olive off the top of their shit sandwich. Subscription paywalls are a cancer growing in the arteries of the information superhighway.