> They aren't displaying it for free, they're displaying it in exchange for your attention/time on the accompanying ads.
> You don't want to buy it because it causes friction to pay the $0.001 it costs to view the page that the ads take care of.
Well, current model also costs me that $0.001 (likely more) in electricity costs and exposes me to at best some ugly-looking crap made with adversarial intent, that has nonzero chance of scamming me into buying something I don't need, and at worst is a vector of malware delivery. It also costs me time wasted on waiting (10x longer load times) and productivity losses due to system slowing down if for some reason I need to keep the site open and do something else.
> You prove there is value to you by the act of visiting
You prove there is potential value by visiting. You won't know if there is an actual value until you at least skim the content. If you're visiting the same site regularly you can start to predict how much value you expect to get out of a visit, but at this point the site owner can probably convince you to pay for it somehow (be it subscription, turning off the ads, selling you their book, etc.).
The electricity costs you mentioned are externalities and not really relevant here. Otherwise you will start blaming everything for every little action you take. If you don't want to browse that site, you can stop at any level from going to that url, starting your browser, buying your computer, living in that country, etc.
When you go shopping, it will likely cost you gas, time, wear/tear, etc just like anything else but do you tally that and ask for a refund on the purchase price?
I also hear this "potential" value argument a lot - why are you continually going to sites that you consider to have no value? Just doesn't make sense. And either way, ads allow you to not lose anything monetarily if you feel that site didn't give you what you expected. It's very a fair and low-risk trade.
> The electricity costs you mentioned are externalities and not really relevant here.
This is very relevant here, because a big part of issue with ads is about dumping externalities on people. When you multiply that small electricity costs by number of people exposed to a bloated, flashy ad you'll see it actually adds up to a decent amount of coal unnecessarily burned. But that's beside the point, I only brought up electricity because it's commensurable to the amount of money ad-serving site makes on me.
> When you go shopping, it will likely cost you gas, time, wear/tear, etc just like anything else but do you tally that and ask for a refund on the purchase price?
I don't ask for refund, but I do tally that and include in my decision about which shop to go to.
> why are you continually going to sites that you consider to have no value?
As I said, if I go to a website regularly, it means that I have some concept of value I may expect to get from it. Bust most of browsing today is driven by a) search results, and b) link aggregators. Most of the websites I visit I visit only once or twice in a lifetime, because there was a link to a particular article on HackerNews, or maybe because it was the first search result for my query. In such situation I do not have concept of value I am about to receive.
> It's very a fair and low-risk trade.
It could be, in principle. It probably would be if the only ads displayed were AdSense ones. But as it is now, getting scammed or catching a drive-by malware is not low-risk trade.
> I don't ask for refund, but I do tally that and include in my decision about which shop to go to.
Then include that in your decision in whether to go to a site with ads. You wouldn't just take things from the store either?
> It could be, in principle. It probably would be if the only ads displayed were AdSense ones. But as it is now, getting scammed or catching a drive-by malware is not low-risk trade.
Scams are a greater issue than to put on advertising. Malware is an issue and I agree with that. The industry does need to work on this and things are changing but that doesn't suddenly make it ok to take. If the risk is too much for you, dont visit the site. Same as if the risk of driving on the freeways is too much, stay off the freeway.
You seem to keep saying you take risk and externalities into account but then say that you have no control and thus rationalize taking content, however you always have the choice of just not going to that link.
> You don't want to buy it because it causes friction to pay the $0.001 it costs to view the page that the ads take care of.
Well, current model also costs me that $0.001 (likely more) in electricity costs and exposes me to at best some ugly-looking crap made with adversarial intent, that has nonzero chance of scamming me into buying something I don't need, and at worst is a vector of malware delivery. It also costs me time wasted on waiting (10x longer load times) and productivity losses due to system slowing down if for some reason I need to keep the site open and do something else.
> You prove there is value to you by the act of visiting
You prove there is potential value by visiting. You won't know if there is an actual value until you at least skim the content. If you're visiting the same site regularly you can start to predict how much value you expect to get out of a visit, but at this point the site owner can probably convince you to pay for it somehow (be it subscription, turning off the ads, selling you their book, etc.).