Depending on someone else's servers isn't that different from depending on someone else's software, which unfortunately we all must do. Unfathomable reams of it, with a growth curve that recently went vertical. I guess the crucial difference is that someone else's servers can be taken away in a flash, while someone else's (FOSSl software can't.
Is it a mad dream to wish that was never gets DOM access, and instead there is invented a less memory-hungry dynamic representation of web pages that's usable only by wasm? Yeah, it's a mad dream. But it's also maddening that I can effortlessly open a 100 MB PDF but browser can barely handle a 10 MB html document.
In general I think the answer could be pretty simple: dedicated marketplaces for products and services, where we go to search for the things we need and want. A humble newspaper contains great examples of good and bad advertising.
Newspapers have whole pages of bad ads, and random bad ads wedged between actual content. Ads have a perverse incentive to mimic the look of actual content, just like on the web. I'd never pick up a newspaper with a goal of "I want to find a tax service" and yet ads for such services are there, unwanted, wedged into other content.
But newspapers also have classified sections, a better kind of ad. They're in a predictable place, where you can go if you need a job.
Imagine if the actual content weren't perforated by a scattershot of ads. Ad revenue would go down, but readership would likely go up. Besides profit motives, it's also a case of the good of the many outweighing the good of the few.
Others like myself do consider the ads when we read the newspaper. I find out about events and local companies that way. I don’t see many print ads that confuse me as to whether they are paid advertisements at a glance.
