Why I Work on Ads

The affluent, early-adopter users who are mostly likely to pay $ᵤ are also those users with highest $ₐ, as advertising to them commands a premium. Unless you enforced discriminatory subscription pricing to users, based on the counterfactual of their potential ad revenue, you’d still be better off advertising to the people willing to drop $10/month ... See more

Unfortunately, advertising has been ingrained into the internet as the basic model for so long and to such an extent that it’s hard to envision online life without the systematic manipulation of attention and all its evils. So we’re bound to wind up here, at the bitter end of “content.” Which is a good excuse to withdraw deeper into books, movies,

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