Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]
Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads.1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service.2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or less for most articles, less than 5c for more serious journalism. Maybe 2 cents/day for social media websites. I would guess for most people in the west 30 dollars/month would be the max they are willing to spend and for other countries, ~5 dollars/month.3. In return for paying for a page there should be 0 off-site advertisements on the page.4. People are going to say - such a business model will not work because too many decisions. Look at places like South Asia where hundreds of millions of people use prepaid phone services where they get charged for every call/sms at very low rates. And they would not have it any other way. I am sure consumers in the West can be trained similarly.