I wish there was some middle ground. Think of all the useful Youtube videos showing how to play an instrument, do woodworking projects, fix cars... there is a vast amount of knowledge there. Maybe YT should be nationalized :-)
Do you think there's a lot of good content out there left to index?
It's true that walled gardens have been eating up useful information and that is a real shame, but make no mistake: there's still a ridiculous amount of good stuff on the open web. They're not playing the SEO optimization game so they get buried.
I have sort of got stuck in this bubble of reddit and not much else and... the way people behave has really sapped my desire to contribute anything to the world. I'm looking around me at the opinions a lot of people are expressing and I think... no, these people don't deserve nice things. It seems sometimes like the whole world is full of venal, bitter and divisive people that do nothing but snap bitterly at the heels of anyone that makes something of themselves or strays too far from safe consensus.
I'm really interested in the idea of decentralized search where everyone has the power to choose for themselves who to trust.
> How would the sites keep the lights on without ads?
Making them turn off the lights is the goal. Good riddance I say, once we get there.