Most people probably don’t think carefully about the revenue model underlying their online experiences. They pay their monthly fee to their Internet provider and their phone company, they pay for a few apps, and they assume this covers their responsibility. This is not logical. The cost of the services Google, Twitter, Facebook and the thousands and maybe millions of content creators incur are substantial and have nothing to do with these consumer payments. Since most understand Google, Twitter, and Facebook are doing very well financially, how does this work?
Some folks find targeted ads to be objectionable. They may find the ads distracting. They may object to the collection of their personal information whether or not this information is used in a way to display ads suited to personal interests. Technology companies not benefitting from ad revenue have begun offering ways to block ads. From the perspective of some consumers, this fixes this problem and this may be the case in the short run. However, without ads there is still the problem of how to pay the companies that provide the services and content.
The present model works mainly because of targeted ads. Consumers of Internet content and services see ads that are often selected based on the online data they have shared with these companies. Consumers pay with personal information that is valued by someone. This information is useful to some companies because it allows the consumers to be targeted for something. The something is often an ad that the ad companies believe will be more influential because the information collected suggests the consumer should find the ad to be useful. We do know that personal information has been used in other ways such as the delivery of ads assumed to impact political decisions.
A recent study by economists offers a suggestion. These economists have evaluated the benefit of targeted ads versus ads not requiring personal information. They have concluded that targeted ads provide only a 4% advantage to the companies paying for the ads (not the ad companies). As I understand their conclusion, ads not requiring the collection of personal information should be good enough. I think a more subtle message is that those who purchase ads in the first place are being misled by ad companies that sell these companies the targeted ads. This is my interpretation. I am uncertain how seriously Google or any of the companies that target ads would be impacted by a requirement that they not be able to collect personal information when selling ads. From the perspective of the consumer, this solution would still require the display of ads, but not the collection of personal information.
You can read more about this proposal from several secondary sources (TechCrunch summary, Wall Street Journal). I tried to locate the study used to generate the 4% estimate, but I was unsuccessful. I was able to find a segment of video in which the principle investigator briefly describes his results and his proposal (start about 5 minutes in). The methodology of research is important to my personal interpretation of results so I can only describe the results at present.
I think that the ad model (sometimes called surveillance capitalism) supporting the Internet environment will come under political scrutiny in the near future. A combination of preventing targeted ads (based on cookies) AND preventing the use of ad blockers would seem to offer a reasonable solution for all parties.