The problem is advertising supported media has it's incentives aligned with the advertisers not the viewer.

You really can't fix this by trying to build a better advert supported service. For the service to be worth running it has to hurt the consumer. If it doesn't the people paying for it will go bust.

The fix is to regulate away advertising supported. It will have to be done gradually or else the disruption will be unbearable. But if the service ain't worth paying for it shouldn't be worth having.

Perhaps agents can save us, if every bit of information you get and every transaction you carry out is mediated through your own decision making software then maybe you'll pay for your own journalism and avoid the traps of brand recognition and so on.

If you regulate away advertising supported sites/services, you're discriminating against lower socioeconomic groups. It would be better to just regulate how much information advertisers can collect, which in turn gives them fewer powers of manipulation.

>If you regulate away advertising supported sites/services, you're discriminating against lower socioeconomic groups.

It seems to be the opposite to me. Such massive influence by advertisers means only those with the most money get heard in the media.

If people have to pay to use every web app then people without money won't be able to use any web apps.

Or do you think it's the opposite?

Why do you assume that if we did away with advertising supported content that every website would be locked behind a paywall?