I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet.
It is almost impossible to have a free internet without ads. So on one side, people want everything free, on the other side, we don't want ads, so there is a clear problem here.
Can someone explain to me what the problem is? Honest question. Thanks.
I'd argue that it's impossible to have a free internet with ads. I'm old enough to have seen the internet before it was ad infested and it wasn't lacking for great content. Humans seem to have a need to share (or at least show off).
Who is paying you to post comments here on HN? I'm guessing nobody, but here you are, contributing to the internet for free.
Without ads we'd lose some things certainly, but the greater the focus there is on making money the worst everything seems to get. The best things are usually the free things, at least until greed causes enshittification to set in.
Value is relative. Some people value attention, showing off, the nice feeling of helping others, contributing to a community, stuff like "I made this tool to help with a task I struggled with, maybe it can help others too, I'll put it in Github" or simply having a good time. People's time is their own, and they'll use it however they want.