I have no doubt that current AI is capable of this (in fact I'm sure it would be trivial for GPT-3.5 and well within reach of even locally-run LLMs), the question is what fraction of users can be bothered -- and I don't see any reason why AI would lead to an increase there.
That is true, but what is also true is that a few products are currently sucking all of the air out of the system, preventing new entrants from encroaching on the incumbents territory.
Maps, Search and Youtube all serve the Google Search business. Any new ad-supported entrant, by necessity, also has to serve the Google Search business.
If the Google Search Business is crippled, there are only good things that can result from that. I don't see a downside to making Google Search unprofitable due to smart ad-blockers. (I welcome hypothetical scenarios in which the Search Business being limited due to ad-blockers has bad unintended consequences).
Unrelated: I don't understand why this comment is modded so low that I can barely see it? It is not in any way controversial and can be (and is, above) rationally debated.
A big increase in the use of ad blockers (AI-enhanced or not) would not only cripple Google, but also hurt the multitudes of small business and hobbyist sites that scrape by on what Google pays them to host ads. If users could somehow culturally readjust en masse to the idea of actually paying for online stuff, this would not be a problem -- but I think that's unlikely to happen immediately, and even in the long term, unlikely to happen to the same extent. So there would be a net loss of free (i.e., paid-for-by-Google-ad-money) content and services available to people. Also, it's not like a new wave of smaller, more democratised ad-sellers would arise in Google's wake, since ad-blocking works on them too.
>It is not in any way controversial and can be (and is, above) rationally debated.
Thanks, I appreciate that. Every society has things that are true but which you aren't supposed to say, and it's amusing to me that "Google provides some high quality free services" seems to be one of ours.
You're correct, but I don't know how bad a thing that is.
To my mind (i.e. my opinion), there's no such thing as a power vacuum that remains a power vacuum.
Something is going to arise that replaces (for example) youtube. It is inconceivable that those content producers on youtube are simply going to give up the ghost and die.
It has to be a self-sustaining something(s) that isn't driven by ads (I agree with you on the point that a replacement can't be ad-supported), and I am arguing that whatever it(them) is will be better than the current ad-driven youtube.
The whole TLDR of my argument is that, even if the ad-driven sites go away, the content-producers and the content-consumers aren't going away!
Right now, the arbitrage is performed by ad-driven middlemen, so the motivation for abuse, control and censorship is incredibly high. I think that whatever arbitrage process or middlemen arise is going to be a lot better for society as a whole than the obnoxious ads with which I am bombarded with whenever I turn off the ad-blocker.
Maybe I'm wrong, but this is one of those things we'll only see when we see it.
I forget how bad Google Search is until I get a new computer/phone without ad blocking enabled
I use Apple Maps and not Google maps
Ads are irritating, and Google is not supplying these services out of the goodness of their heart, but I think there's no question that the world is a better place with these ad-supported services in it.
I would rather have all google products be paid, and lessen the incentive for business to spend a large share of their revenue on advertisement.
So be it. If those services can't survive without ads and surveillance capitalism, they don't deserve to exist.
If for example youtube with all of its information or even Google search required a subscription, suddenly a lot of people who make significantly less than the average for the developed world would no longer be able to access those resources.
I still hate the ad surveillance everywhere, but it was a point I hadn't considered before.
You know who has seeded that argument into the public domain? PR agencies working for the advertising industry. It doesn't have any merit whatsoever. People in developing countries don't like ads any more than anyone else.
This argument definitely gets pushed now and then, but seeing you write it out actually made me realize it seems like a red herring.
Ads are priced, bid, bought, and sold based on their expected return on investment.
If lower-income countries would be unable to sustain a public website because of being unable to pay for subscriptions, wouldn't they also be unable to sustain that website because ads sold there should have lower prices?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa
https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret...
There are plenty of online resources which don't require ads. Sibling comment mentions Wikipedia, Open Street Map also comes to mind. We need more of these in this world. Not this ad-supported nonsense.
I don't use gmail because why would anyone want to use gmail for anything but temporary throwaways that'll get spammed.
I don't use google maps. nokia heremaps and openstreetmap (I use magic earth) are better in most ways, worse in others. When I go to a different country, I click "download country" and have a fully searchable map. No, I don't want a map that needs a data connection. No, I don't want to have to visually search the map for the thing I'm looking for, because someone barfed up a salad of dots that are place ads for things unrelated to my search. Google maps is not usable to anyone who has used something else. People who always use google maps don't know any better.
I do use google translate. This does not support your argument, because that's a service that is free, and does not display ads. You saying that the current ad-free service will disappear if ads were blocked from it... Can't make the comment on here that I want to make, so I'll let you imagine <words>
Youtube... Who give a crap. There were sites with videos before, there are other sites now. No, no one can host a huge expensive platform like that for free. So how about the people posting stuff, pay for their stuff being hosted. Then those people can inline talking ads or put a coke can on their desk, in their videos. You know, how ads in videos have been done since the existence of the video format, in 1920 all the way up to right now.
Google products, google customer service, and google the company, are inferior to the competition in almost every way. Except for google translate. Which again - has no ads.
Google Maps has had the ability to download maps for offline use as long as I can remember -- at least since 2013.
>This does not support your argument, because that's a service that is free, and does not display ads.
All Google services are ad-supported, at least indirectly. That's because Google pays for their development and upkeep, and Google's primary income stream is ads.
Now, speaking of reading, I unfortunately stopped reading after your first sentence. This is because you immediately made it clear you are not communicating in good faith.
You have a good day, and enjoy winning all those arguments you yourself made up. The adults in the room ignore people like you and just move on.
