Wouldn't an ad-free-only search result eventually prioritize for news/info sites that have other forms of sustenance outside of readership?
Digital subscription rates have been rising, but not fast enough to subsist most publications without additional ad revenue.
My concern is that such a search engine would allow private interests to create "news/media/info" sites directly that qualify while long-respected publications are ostracized.
Great idea if the primary intent is to index other types of content outside of that sphere, but based on the history of the modern web I think we could expect that to be gamed pretty quickly in a detrimental way.
Even just writing this comment I keep coming into thoughts and it's making me realize what an interesting subject of discussion it could be. There's a lot of questions in there!
Digital subscription rates have been rising, but not fast enough to subsist most publications without additional ad revenue.
My concern is that such a search engine would allow private interests to create "news/media/info" sites directly that qualify while long-respected publications are ostracized.
Great idea if the primary intent is to index other types of content outside of that sphere, but based on the history of the modern web I think we could expect that to be gamed pretty quickly in a detrimental way.
Even just writing this comment I keep coming into thoughts and it's making me realize what an interesting subject of discussion it could be. There's a lot of questions in there!