Comment The importance of protecting our wallets (Score 1) 351
Would you like to pay for every Internet search, like the good old days of Lexus Nexus? Watching Antenna TV? Buying physical goods, because the company was not able to sell lots through advertisement and ramp up efficiencies on volume? Money in our wallets is limited resource and most of us want some choices on what to pay for and what to get for free while giving businesses a chance to sell something else to us later.
Ads can be seen as a kind of voluntary income transfer. It's possible to get lots of stuff for free or low price by accepting ads, gathering coupons or starting and canceling free trials. Poor do not have money to buy advertised products anyway. The only issues are deceptive/emotionally exploitive ads, and need for universal ability to opt out by paying fair price that the content provider would otherwise get for the impressions.