Footnote: after some naval-gazing, I have to conclude that all of these assumptions are based to some extent on the axiomatic belief that market-based approaches are the best way of managing a cultural communications medium.
As a little-l libertarian, I'd accept that there's a bit of market failure here as the friction of making payments has exceeded the relative ease of "just slap some ads on it". However I suspect this problem is fixing itself over time. Ad inventory is only going to increase, which drops what you can change on average, which is slowly but surely going to take "just slap ads on it" out of the reach of more and more people, and alternate payment methods, while not quite as easy as just shouting "Micropayments!" and walking away with a smug expression, are in fact developing. Kickstarter is one example, and other models like that will develop and return the concept of "patronage" to the field of culture by mixing in a heavy dose of "crowdsourcing". And once we're comfortable with that, who knows what else we might come up with?
And hey, maybe somebody will figure out that whole micropayment thing too. But at least now there are increasingly concrete demonstrations that they were never the only solution, which is fortunate since they don't seem to work.
I'm actually more optimistic now that we can escape from ads as the only choice than I've ever been before. I'm hoping that this is the last year or two that cstross could make this post and have it still seem a reasonable concern.
I don't know, it seems like it is going the other way. At least for the buyer, internet ads have become more expensive over time. I imagine mobile ads will become more expensive as well.
There's the Wikipedia non-profit model, for one. Probably can't create all kinds of content, but it has created some of the highest-quality online content.
Why do you think that a non-profit model is outside of the market? People donate money to sustain something they get utility from, and all of the donations are freely given. It would only be outside a "market model" if Wikipedia were funded solely by the government. As it were, it is a free enterprise with a goal other than profit.
Charities and non-profit foundations can hardly be considered outside of the market model. Wikipedia is, in fact, an anecdote you'd point to if your goal was to debate that market forces result in collective good.
That's true. I suppose more specifically Wikipedia is an example of web content being produced without a profit motive on the part of the producing entity, but not wholly outside a market model.
How that relates to market models producing collective good depends on which one you subscribe to. Many proponents (dating back to Adam Smith) argue that it's the profit motive in particular that makes the market model produce good outcomes. There's also a lot of skepticism of even voluntary collective production in much of the libertarian literature; e.g. the Israeli kibbutzim or the 19th-century "utopian socialist" communes aren't viewed favorably. Wikipedia has a sort of voluntary-collectivism feeling to it as well, from that perspective, though it's more limited in that you don't have to actually move to Wikipedia and live there; you can just contribute some content now and then.
Is it helpful to make a distinction between managing and funding? I am unconvinced that most people hold that "advertising is socially neutral or good" but rather are left with the question "how else will it be paid for?" I deliberately phrase the question passively - it is easier to ignore the downsides of advertising compared to asking "How will I fund what I value?"
I hesitate to bring up the BBC licence fee because it is still a very consumptive model but as an expat Brit in the USA I often wish I could still pay it for the privilege of accessing the BBC content.
I have to disagree there - there are other approaches to market-based funding of the creation of cultural communications that are not advertising based. For a very successful current example, see Kickstarter.
