Mostly because it's not free. The money still comes from you, otherwise targeted tracking and advertising wouldn't make a profit, and wouldn't exist. For advertising supporting "free stuff", you have to accept one of a handful of potential realities:
* Advertising companies are taking a loss, and are funding free websites out of the good of their hearts. (we know that this is not true)
* Advertising companies make a killing, but the money still somehow doesn't come from you, so it is somehow being taken from somewhere else, or the companies paying for the advertising are taking a huge loss.
* The money actually still comes from you, but most of it is going to the advertisers instead of the content that you actually want to support, and it comes from you in a roundabout way over a longer period of time so you don't even notice it.
In short, if the companies are getting the money to run their "free content" AND the advertising companies are making a big profit, where does the money actually come from? It has to come from somewhere, it isn't being printed and gifted to the advertising companies. There's only one place I can see that this money comes from, and that's the people being advertised to.
Why is anybody okay with being psychologically manipulated knowing that the benefits of the manipulation primarily come to the manipulators rather than the content that they like? And also knowing that the manipulation itself continually warps and corrupts the content as everything is being optimized toward pure "Engagement" rather than actual useful information? Wouldn't you rather pay directly for the thing that you like than be subtly manipulated into paying some weird third party longer down the line?
* Advertising companies are taking a loss, and are funding free websites out of the good of their hearts. (we know that this is not true)
* Advertising companies make a killing, but the money still somehow doesn't come from you, so it is somehow being taken from somewhere else, or the companies paying for the advertising are taking a huge loss.
* The money actually still comes from you, but most of it is going to the advertisers instead of the content that you actually want to support, and it comes from you in a roundabout way over a longer period of time so you don't even notice it.
In short, if the companies are getting the money to run their "free content" AND the advertising companies are making a big profit, where does the money actually come from? It has to come from somewhere, it isn't being printed and gifted to the advertising companies. There's only one place I can see that this money comes from, and that's the people being advertised to.
Why is anybody okay with being psychologically manipulated knowing that the benefits of the manipulation primarily come to the manipulators rather than the content that they like? And also knowing that the manipulation itself continually warps and corrupts the content as everything is being optimized toward pure "Engagement" rather than actual useful information? Wouldn't you rather pay directly for the thing that you like than be subtly manipulated into paying some weird third party longer down the line?