The internet is broken because it is free

Microtransactions are not a silver bullet. I expect you would want to set the level at less that what local fast food places pay to stick their leaflets through my door, yet the paper spam keeps coming.

Search engines funded by advertising seem to me to be a rare example of online advertising working for all parties. What makes you say it’s oxymoronic?

My understanding is that adding micropayments to every click online would greatly reduce how much people used the internet (because they have to work out how much each click would cost, and whether it would be worth it). This does not automatically seem a win.

> If people were invisible in real life do you think shoplifting and violent crimes would increase or decrease?

As long as the items people shoplifted were still visible, I think shoplifters would be more cautious than they are now, especially as they'd have no idea if their actions were being watched and followed by a squad of invisible security guards / police.

Similarly, if people were invisible, then violent crimes would be harder just because potential victims can hide better, and potential criminals wouldn't know when they are really alone with their target.

Anyway, anonymity doesn't mean invisibility. A better analogy would be wearing a mask. It's true that criminals often choose to wear one, but I'm not sure if bans on masks have been proven to reduce crime.

> Microtransactions for everything would fix the internet.

Then why isnt there such an internet? People have been saying this for 20 years, and there is no technological barrier.

To me, there are currently at least three "internets". One I pay for, mostly for work, that includes paid email, cloud storage, and office suite, as well as AWS and other tools.

The second is "the good internet" - things like documentation, open source tools, some kinds of discussion forum, and other community stuff that is there as part of a community and not really because someone has profit as a motive (I know that open source is increasingly being invaded by corporate interests, but anyway for now there is still lots of unencumbered stuff)

And then there is the cesspool that it the attention economy. Outside of rare forays to try and get some information snippet, or check news, I try and stay away.

A pre-streaming television analogy might be HBO et al, PBS, and something like history channel that last time I checked cut to commercial about every 5 minutes and only played low budget reality crap.

Just because there is a bad part doesn't mean that's all there is

This is one of the pillars of the web3 argument as I understand it. It's a tough sell to convince people to pay for something they are accustomed to getting for free. HBO and NetFlix went the no advertising route and became quite successful by offering something worth paying for. You can pay to upload videos on Vimeo free of advertisement if you'd like to investigate that use case.

The same thing happens when kids buy $500 of Robux because you left your card active in their account. The solution could be to require 2FA for a transaction over a certain amount.