> If no one "needs" them, then they won't get viewers and thus eventually won't get ads, either.

Demonstrably untrue; there are plenty of spam sites that hide themselves and play the SEO game well enough to (temporarily) get my eyeballs. These sites only satisfy a "need" insofar as my grandparents have a "need" to respond to emails from Nigerian scammers.

Why do the villagers keep complaining about the widespread bandit problem when they could simply improve their swordfighting or hire bodyguards?

I'm sure villagers wish they could adblock or PiHole the bandits. would be a win-win situation.

Someone's been watching The Seven Samurai.

Ok.. This feels needlessly confrontational?

Sure, yes, according to me. That was implied when I posted my opinion on here, a discussion forum where we share opinions.

My opinion is that the ad-supported model itself, which doesn't rely on having paying readers/users, but rather on attracting said users to then be paid for showing them ads or collecting their data, has perhaps unintentionally created too low of a bar for entry (in hindsight) and as a result, the fierce competition for profit has led to user-hostile incentives in order to stay alive in such a crowded landscape.

I think the low barrier to entry for putting up websites or creating content online are a net positive, for the record. I love that anyone can just put their content online and compete for an audience on merit (more or less), rather than needing some large monetary investment up front.

But I also think the ad-supported monetize-the-shit-out-of-users model is a bad thing, and benefits from the same low barrier to entry.

But you take the good with the bad I suppose.

> This feels needlessly confrontational

if you make an assertion about there being "too many" of something, it begs for someone to ask how you know this. Almost anyone on HN might ask that. However, you've now added some nuance to it.

I think in general a low barrier to entry is a good thing: most of the music on Bandcamp wouldn't have even been available to the public 50 years ago.

Most of the self-published books out there now also would never make it past the Mean Girl "agents" who populate literary agencies. Most of those books are crap, but then so are the books from major publishers in airport bookstores.

> if you make an assertion about there being "too many" of something, it begs for someone to ask how you know this.

Ah yes, the old "must challenge every statement" gambit. You must be fun at parties.