Interests
We think we're getting free email, free news, free music, free movies, etc., but there's no such thing as a free ride.
It bears repeating that "if you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." The only people who can sustain a living in this model are parasites who continuously repackage the work of others for their benefit. Content producers get nothing or pennies at best. In the meantime, we have to be hounded by advertisements on every web site. At the same time, because we aren't paying, we have no recorse, no way to withdraw our funding in protest when said site performs some distasteful behavior. We never know whether content is genuine or simply an elaborate advertisement to earn clicks (see the myriad of content farms, or the continued publishing of tabloid articles on non-tabloid, mainstream sites). Frankly, I'd rather pay.
Until, there a fair way to pay for content, I'm running Adblock and No-script on Firefox, and I'm keeping it turned on for every web site. I've been on the internet for 20+ years now, and I think I clicked on one ad the entire time and only out of curiosity as it was the first online ad I ever saw.