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Internet's biggest annoyance: Cookie laws should target browsers, not websites

(nednex.com)
583 points SweetSoftPillow | 2 comments | 22 Oct 25 12:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.475s | source
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stared ◴[22 Oct 25 12:56 UTC] No.45668362[source]▶
To solve the root problem, we need to steer away from the ad-based revenue model.

We use websites for "free" paying with data. A cynical take on that is "if you are not a customer, you are a product".

If there were no adverts, quite a few things would change:

* much less incentive to track users

* way less distractions

* higher quality content (since it is less about clickbaits and shear volume of visitors)

Yes, it means paying for stuff. Would love to pay per visit or type spent, provided it is easy.

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1. arnvald ◴[22 Oct 25 13:08 UTC] No.45668542[source]▶
Unfortunately there's simply no way this is going to happen:

* advertising is profitable for advertisers — they buy ad slots because it brings revenue

* advertising is profitable for publishers — some of the biggest companies in the world (Google, Meta) make most of their revenue from ads

* most people are reluctant to spend money, but they're ok to "spend" their attention and their data

There were multiple attempts with micro-payments and nothing has worked so far. Monthly subscription is preferred by customers and companies, but there are only so many outlets that anyone will subscribe to.

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2. stared ◴[22 Oct 25 14:06 UTC] No.45669384[source]▶
Sure, advertising is profitable. Yet, there are various regulations or social norms telling what is available and what is not. For example, we can think of covering a landmark "because it is profitable" - e.g. think of dressing the Statue of Liberty in clothes of a given brand, or covering the Greek Pantheon in free-to-play game ads.

Of course, tastes matter. The US is littered with (in real world) advertising banners, my native Poland - even more. But there are quite a few places in the Europe in which people would consider it off putting to use a glowing sign on a historical or otherwise clean design.

So it is about both tastes and regulations.

> most people are reluctant to spend money, but they're ok to "spend" their attention and their data

This is a tricky part. Kind of miss times when we were buying paper newspapers.

But let's take an example - devs were reluctant to pay $ for services. Not everyone and their dog pays for tokens.