Lets not pretend that ads help people with less money. Ads are designed to manipulate people into buying things they don't need.

They encourage people to believe their self worth is linked to the things they own. That a persons status in society is somehow associated with how much money they have to spend.

> Lets not pretend that ads help people with less money.

Who's pretending? Ads naturally and quite effectively price-discriminate, and so they do make internet content cheaper for people with less money.

You may have problems with excessive consumption, but many people in developing countries do not. They desperately need the free content (educational, informative, and otherwise) that the current internet model provides them.

There are much better options to provide people with educational, informative and entertaining content.

Well funded public broadcasters like Australia ABC provide news and entertainment content free. (both text and video)

Well funded public libraries can provide a wide range of alternate content.

My family is made up of poor immigrants, many of whom are back in their home country. Free communication systems are a godsend for them.

While I love libraries and public broadcasting, I learned to code as a poor kid through library books, they are not the full solution and they never provided free, instant, and any time international communication for people.

Yeah, let's pretend libraries have equivalent content to the free internet!

Let's pretend that most creators of free content on the internet are compensated by ads.

You have a very low opinion of humans. I happen to think people are a bit better equipped to make their own decisions than you do.

Ads aren't free to run and the price is baked into the product's. The poor don't benefit from them.