One thing that these efforts seem to miss: payments.
The ads are there not just for fun, but they provide an income stream to content creators and for the networks themselves. In essence, ads work as a micro-payment infrastructure. But then you need to drive up visits to increase the number of ad impressions. And this leads to the spiral of ever-radicalizing media.
What can be done? I don't know. Something like "basic attention token" but without shady crypto, perhaps?
AFAICT, content is "rated" not on quality, but on quantity, as in popularity and virality; essentially all the things that advertisers love.
Now, that's not to say that popularity and quality are mutually exclusive; only that popularity is the only measure that I can see in operation.
I actually do pay for quality, but not on the internet, partly due to the lack of tokens, and the rather nasty risk of using one's credit card at countless sites. Each one increases the already too-high risk of hacking by some factor unknown to me, and I limit internet payments as much as I can. I'm not a fan of pre-paid credit cards. I use Apple Pay to conceal the credit card info, though that's not a foolproof system. Apple too often asks for a passcode when I am shopping, and in sight of shoulder surfers and surveillance cameras.
The ideal is be able to reduce to effectively noncommercial at-cost operations, perhaps by distributing through services that are paid for but underutilized.
Some people think that adtech has to be intrusive and violating for it to be effective, but that's not true - we're just competing against highly vertical monopolies with total dominance, from browser to industry. I think sponsorship models might be good alternatives, with service provided through municipal providers like amateur radio bands.
There would have to be some strict rules, but it could be available to anyone within a certain address space who is a private citizen operating in either a non-commercial or limited commercial capacity (and limited external connectivity, like a local LAN), managed like the CB crowd does against unauthorized usage.
If you want to peer with the town over and they're dominated by a private ISP who won't allow it, maybe it'll give them something to think about.
Literally not. The article has zero answers about what to do with ads.
You can't build a sustainable model without having an income. And ads are the only way to get it right now, because subscriptions can't scale down to the level of individual sites.
The ads are there not just for fun, but they provide an income stream to content creators and for the networks themselves. In essence, ads work as a micro-payment infrastructure. But then you need to drive up visits to increase the number of ad impressions. And this leads to the spiral of ever-radicalizing media.
What can be done? I don't know. Something like "basic attention token" but without shady crypto, perhaps?