> If you like a site to go back to it repeatedly don't you think it would be fair to "pay the fee" of seeing the ads, thus supporting that site...
I struggle with this. Of course I want the producers of content that I like to make money. And it seems obvious to me that if I'm one of the people consuming (and liking) that content... some of that money I want them to make should come from me.
But the pipeline that the "modern web" provides to complete that transaction is openly hostile towards me. It makes content creators that I want to support participants in a giant machine designed to build a dossier on me (and every other user of the "modern web"). It also encourages VERY LARGE numbers of content creators I do not want to support -- those whose primary goal is to be participant in that machine; who only produce content because the machine requires it.
I would argue that this machine has never built this dossier with my "informed" consent (but lawyers could make the case that it has). But now, the machine builds it without even bothering to get my "uninformed" consent. For example: Facebook is known to build profiles on people that don't have Facebook accounts -- ie: people that could never have agreed to their TOS.
The top priority of this giant machine is putting ads in front of my face. Helping me discover content that I want to consume is only a secondary priority.
And there is a GOOD reason for why this machine evolved: people don't want to pay money _directly_ to content creators, so a way evolved for them to receive compensation _indirectly_. So yes, this is -- at least in part -- my (our) fault.
But I really feel like things have shifted to the point where the large majority of compensation that content creators receive is a function of their value to that machine... not a function of the value they create for the people who consume their content.
This is all a very long way of saying: I don't believe the value of a content creator _to me_ should be calculated based on their value _to this machine_.
I don't know what the solution is. Find a way to accurately assess the value _to me_, not _to the machine_ -- and then provide a way for me to pay the content creator directly. If I like the content enough -- and IF I'm not shown ads or tracked once I'm a paying customer -- I will pay. This is how newspapers worked for... centuries? (Save that newspapers did show ads, though they did not track you).
The problem is... I think that being part of the machine is more lucrative than selling content directly to consumers. And the hostility of this machine towards me has turned this into a fight. Of course I'm going to fight back.
> ...however annoying they are?
This is where you start to lose me. I don't think "annoying" captures just how "hostile" this machine has become.
I'm old enough to remember switching from Yahoo Search to Google Search -- NOT because the results were better, but because Google's ads were less intrusive. I never blocked those ads. I even clicked a few...