[stoev]

There is a very important point made in this article that is unfortunately lost in-between all the other arguments:

“Meanwhile, the ability to track users wherever they go tends to shift ad revenue from higher quality sites to less reputable ones. “The way the adtech system works is, it follows the reader from Wired.com all the way down to the cheapest possible place, the basement bottom-feeders on the internet, and will serve you the ads there.””

Many people don’t like seeing ads. But they do like receiving the free content that those ads pay for. And would find it far more annoying if all the content was locked behind paywalls. Whether we like it or not, digital advertising is a powerful equaliser that gave free access to vast amounts of information to anyone from any country and from any income bracket.

But the shift towards audience targeting has stripped high-quality content creators of their share of the value they create and has instead spread it out to countless click-baity websites and apps designed entirely to profit of off targeted advertising.

So diminishing our reliance on targeted advertising is not only great for the user, it would be truly game-changing for high-quality content providers as well. For some reason, this mutually beneficial outcome is often forgotten and I’m glad that Wired pointed it out.

[Nasrudith]

The claim about quality sounds incredibly dubious and really gives away the game is about felony interference with a business model. "High quality" is downright narcissistic witg delusions of grandeur.

High production value can and is absolute shit. Gell-Mann amnesia effect says hi. The problem isn't the competition but that the old guard sucked at their job.

I am no fan of targetted advertising but I despise attempts to control the internet for the sake of dinosaur propagandists. They need to just die already and stop crapping out bullshit.