Most people don't have money, and when I say most, I mean at least 90% of people. So free services powered by ads are the best thing for them, and those people are the large majority.
I'm not sure it's that clear. The fact that free services with ads manage to thrive means that they somehow manage to extract money from those 99% of people. I'm pretty sure it's not only the richest 1% supporting the whole Internet ad eco-system.
Ads convince people to spend money on some product they wouldn't buy otherwise. This in term finances those ads which finances the service. I'm not convinced this is better in the long run for many than paying services directly.
> The fact that free services with ads manage to thrive means that they somehow manage to extract money from those 99% of people
I think that doesn't hold logical water.
If only 1% of people buy things of significant value based on ads, and 99% of people never buy what's advertised, it is still worth advertising while advertising is cheap.
A related phenomenon is the way online games make their money.
The vast majority of players never pay for anything. A few pay a little, and a tiny minority pay so much more than everyone else that it's the tiny minority that the game-maker depends on for their business.
I am not sure why are you getting downvoted. If vast majority of Internet users were broke, there would be no sense in tracking them and showing them ads for paid products/services.
Looking at the strain of our local delivery services right now, that cannot be just 10 per cent of people shopping.
I'm not sure what "don't have money" means here. Presumably 90% of users do have some money. I would think most of them pay money for internet access. The question is whether they can afford service X given the other things they would prefer to pay for.
