Major part NOW, but are they intrinsic and inextricable? I don&#x27;t think so. And I think on balance they are harmful, but I acknowledge that it&#x27;ll take a long time to switch the economic dynamics, norms, etc. to a state where ads are rare. However, I think it&#x27;s possible and I think it&#x27;s overall preferable.<p>Edit: I&#x27;ll followup really quick on how ads can be harmful with regard to content making. Ad revenue scales based on eyeballs alone, that&#x27;s the primary metric. To maximize profit that means you need the most eyeballs and the cheapest to produce content. That causes a pressure towards tabloid-style content, especially in journalism, which has become a very noticeable trend. When there&#x27;s a more direct route for revenue from content consumers to producers there&#x27;s more reward for producing higher value content. Having correctly aligned incentives is hugely valuable, and something that has been sorely missing in regard to a lot of content that was produced in the 20th century.<p>It&#x27;s always easy to look at major business changes as hugely scare and potentially calamitous but in the end it&#x27;s extraordinarily unlikely that the fire to create art can be easily extinguished and the hunger to consume it won&#x27;t result in sufficient expenditures to enable creators to support themselves. Overall I&#x27;d say a lot of what I&#x27;ve seen in regards to how new creators emerge and get on their feet and how that&#x27;s changed since the dawn of the web-era has been almost exclusively beneficial.