So if you are not convinced the advert driven model is not "the only, or even a good, model" what is then an alternative.
I think the ad model needs to improve where the major players will start enforcing strict rules on what types of adverts are allowed for example, they could reject any advert that waste CPU cycles, reject ones using too much memory, ban buggy adverts.
Plus, the number one concern these days, the privacy concern, I am forced to use adblockers everywhere on the Internet except for a few sites because I do not want some company giving me product recommendations just because I had a conversation with a friend about something related.
Subscriptions. My company only provides services via subscription, which means we can provide great support, continuous development, and no ads. Our customers love this.
You could argue that this doesn't solve your problem, because we have to identify you to tell if you have paid or not. But actually paying for a service radically alters the relationship - it's suddenly in our interests to keep your information private, because if we don't you'll stop paying us and move to competitors who can provide better privacy. So we're now on the same side on this issue.
The old adage that if it's free, YOU are the product is now understood by more and more people.
Subscriptions are nice, but not for everything, if the entire Internet was a subscription model, that would suck so much you would have to spend atleast 100usd a month to just keep using websites. Even if we have a model where you can subscribe to an array of sites using one service, we will still have the same problem of a few companies being in charge of controlling the information we have access to. Hell it would make tracking even easier.
Honestly I don't think we should even think about getting rid of adverts, but I definitely think that these adverts need to focus on being non intrusive, they have to start respecting people's privacy. I would willingly support a product which helps keep something I love online. But I would definitely think twice if that said company tries to get through to me by tracking and observing what I do online.
This is great for a lot of things, but I find I suffer from "subscription fatigue" lately where I'm reluctant to sign up for anything new because the amount of subscriptions slowly gets out of control. It might work for netflix and other giants but I'm not sure if it's viable for smaller players.
I think there's a business opportunity for someone to build a subscription management service that acts as an intermediary between users and those smaller players. Make it easy for users to subscribe / unsubscribe, track free trial periods, provide customer service, etc.
I think the ad model needs to improve where the major players will start enforcing strict rules on what types of adverts are allowed for example, they could reject any advert that waste CPU cycles, reject ones using too much memory, ban buggy adverts.
Plus, the number one concern these days, the privacy concern, I am forced to use adblockers everywhere on the Internet except for a few sites because I do not want some company giving me product recommendations just because I had a conversation with a friend about something related.