At this point, I think it’s clear that ads create a bunch of messed up incentives. From Cable, to Newspapers, to the Internet.

I guess any information <system? network? Broadcaster?> fares badly against financial consolidation of its <servers / distributors ?>

Advertisements are one part of the fall - it forces a fight for attention, and that is a limited resource.

We know enough about gaming Attention today, and that converges content that drives revenue in a similar direction, creating a conformity of content that is reproduced.

As revenues decline, independent nodes on the network get consolidated, so that you have very similar messages being sent.

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Counter point: As content generated increases, people turn to trusted sources to find out what’s true.

That said, trusted sources aren’t just the big media houses, it’s whoever people trust.

So some part of the consolidation effect is reduced by having more sources of content.

But the new sources of content exist, because they can afford to exist. So it comes back to the fact that advertising subsidizes independent creators.

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Guess the final point would be that this evolves into a discussion on resources and orchestrated information dissemination.