A Reddit result in Google might take you to a private page now
There are paid search engines like Kagi and at this point I block domains that seem to be SEO blog spam. Kagi makes money off subscriptions, not ads, and they let you block whichever domains you want. That’s the future, a federated internet where people pay to support the sites they want directly.
Yes but actually not. Federated, yes. Everyone contributing, yes. Paid for access… that’s a path I prefer not to walk into. Payment should be voluntary.
I am gladly paying for my mastodon account and I will gladly pay for my kbin account when/if recurrent payments are possible. But I understand I am a privileged one. 20€ a year for me is easy at this point of my life. But not everyone earns money. Not everyone lives in a country where 20€ a year is small change. 10 years ago I wouldn’t have been able to pay that easily.
A world in which we federate and each of us contribute and pay, if we can, the amount we can, that makes sense to me.
A world in which you can’t access the good parts of the internet unless you pay for it, that’s scary to me.