Vivaldi co-founder: Advertisers 'stole the internet from us'
I don&#x27;t want to dunk on a single out-of-context quote, and I&#x27;m sure that Mr. Tetzchner fully understands what I&#x27;m about to type as he seems like a brilliant guy. But blaming the current miasma on &quot;advertisers&quot; is so short-sighted.<p>The reason why everything is ruined by advertising is because <i>nearly everybody expects content to be free to the end user on the internet.</i> The money has to come from somewhere, so advertising it is.<p>Why does everybody want everything to be free? That&#x27;s a more interesting question.<p>Is it because years of free broadcast television and radio conditioned us to expect everything to be ad-supported and &quot;free?&quot;<p>Is it because everything was sort of &quot;free by default&quot; in the early days of the internet because we hadn&#x27;t worked out payment systems and such?