I’ve been using the internet for over 24 years. I can tell you that the internet can survive without ads or paywalls. Ads and paywalls are a product of greed. Ads are way more efficient these days but many used to take up so much memory. I remember when AdBlock or whatever it was called came out. It made browsing the internet smoother.
For myself, the quality in posts has dropped significantly. I’m always challenging myself to learn, I also learn better with things that interest me. I’ve found since Boost for Reddit went down that not even old reddit is catching my attention. I feel bored. This is for popular or r/all. If I’m on my own homepage it’s like Reddit never changed as I’m subbed to mostly all small subs.
I work in a warehouse and take care of exotic animals on the side. I feel I have the basics down for tech but not enough to do IT or something. My family and friends contact me for tech help so I guess I know more than the average person. Even though I literally just Google everything, most of the time.