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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I think another comparison would compare ads with taxes:

Taxes are also generally unliked. We understand that they are needed but we try to work at the border of what is legal. Same with the ads we try to skip: We understand that they provide some value to some people but those we do not like we'd like to skip. People hate ads like they hate taxes.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

> Robin has failed to establish that ads are as good as news.

I don't think he is required to. He points out one commonality and there is one. There are difference he could have addressed and maybe these are decisive.

For example why do people pay for news but not for ads? Because the incentive structure for news is to be interesting for readers while the incentive structure for ads is to create paying customers. And though there apparently is some overlap (see Superbowl ads) there seems to be sufficient structure to specialize.

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