If I could downvote I would. This is completely missing the topic.

It's about too aggressive monetization vs. user experience and the loss of visitors/ad targets, not some "yeehaw things cost money"

I think the point he's obliquely trying to make is that the monetization of attention is not a thing that can actually be done right, at all.

We should have solved the problem of bandwidth costs another way - taxes or paying individually for each thing. People keep saying the internet failed. No, the internet has been working perfectly while a bunch of bridge trolls came in and setup shop.

These two things have nothing to do with each other and this is a very black and white mentality. Reddit already had ads and already made money. This is about squeezing more money out of users, not any sort of charity for a system that doesn't sustain itself.

Those ads aren’t helping anything if you consume the site through an API and a third-party application.