With caveat of getting downvoted, I don't understand why ad supported businesses are derided especially on forums like HN.<p>1. Marketing & Visibility: Ads let small businesses (and of course startups) to gain visibility. How many startups don't use Google Adwords? Almost everyone.<p>2. Proven Model: Ad supported businesses are proven model of decades. Newspapers, radio, TV, magazines everyone used ads to subsidize "creativity".<p>3. Privacy: In digital realm, targeting and cookie dropping leads to privacy concerns. I completely agree. But all the data is mainly collected anonymously. As a young male in twenties, I'd much prefer my ads that are relevant to me. And I'm fine with data collection as long its free.<p>4. Democratization: Don't forget ads played critical role in democratization of Internet since everyone could join the party with minimal barriers. Imagine if all the services were paid. Even students from developing countries like India/China couldn't have afforded it due to currency imbalances.<p>5. Ads are crappy: Currently banner ads are crappy. I agree. Ads done right are always enjoyable. Who didn't enjoy the old spice "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign. All of my friends loved it. Remember, it was all digital campaign. Crappy ads lead to frustration. Auto-playing videos, page-takeovers, etc. are ugly, we must change that to make advertising attractive.
Fred Wilson wrote about this today: <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/07/in-defense-of-free.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/07/in-defense-of-free.html</a><p>TL;DR : yes
Wouldn't the best route to take be making ads an opt in, they broker the ads and content creators get a piece of the action? And be able to blacklist certain ads