Earlier quoted context omitted.
SEO / billboards / paid-for advertising is basically legal propaganda (arguably a form of mind control or more neutral we can say reality shaping through narrative structuring). I think the only place advertising should be allowed is in a marketplace setting, anywhere else is "public domain" and shouldn't be allowed in my opinion. It is the root to many evils, it is the mechanism that trends towards hacking the user…
I hate ads as much as everyone else (and actively block the hell out of it) At the same time, ads made a lot of the free web possible. I run services making money with ads: I would not be able to work on them without. Or maybe the revenue I would make is too little to bother with all the stupid EU regulations around VAT - ads offer a simple solution and you get a single B2B transaction, while providing values to Cust…
What I do: work a day job to make money and then give my content away for free, or charge what the market will bear. No ads, no SEO. Classic, old-school Internet.