The free, cooperative Internet of its origins has become the most commodified space in the world. Streaming platforms, which were born promising catalogues without commercial interruptions, have embraced advertising as their main source of growth.
There was a time when the Internet was a refuge. In IRC channels and the first web pages and blogs beat a genuine optimism and a cooperative idealism. That quiet space, free of the annoying ads of traditional television, seemed like a break from the commercial model. But that stage is over: today the Web is an economic steamroller.
The paradigm shift is visible in the numbers. According to data from the portal Statista, online advertising revenue in the United States went from $8.09 billion in 2000 to $294.59 billion in 2025, a quarter of a century of vertiginous growth. What began as a way to sustain small initiatives — such as a blog — became a multi-billion-dollar business concentrated in a few hands.
Streaming embodies this contradiction with particular clarity. Netflix and other platforms arrived promising a paid subscription in exchange for no ads. The promise didn’t last: all of them have launched ad-supported plans and market them with particular aggressiveness, because they are more profitable. Users pay the fee and, on top of that, consume ads. According to the analyst firm Ampere Analysis, ad-supported plans will bill $45 billion in North America this year, 54% of what companies earn from subscriptions.
The strategy is clear: raise prices on ad-free plans to push consumers toward ad-supported ones. “If the Netflix consumer doesn’t want to see ads, they have to pay a higher monthly fee,” sums up the logic of the business. YouTube capitalizes on its enormous consumption share — 13.8% of screen time on U.S. televisions, compared with 8% for Netflix and 19.2% for traditional television — by flooding an ever-larger and more effective audience for advertisers with ads.
The number of ads on streaming is lower than on linear television — about four minutes per hour — but the focus is on user perception, with users caught by surprise. Streaming emerged precisely as an opposition to how television works: a pact of an inexpensive subscription in exchange for a catalogue without interruptions. On social networks the annoyance is even greater: on Facebook many abandon the video rather than keep watching the ad, and on TikTok, commercials are joined by promotions from the influencers themselves.
The equation, at bottom, is simple: people accept advertising in exchange for a cheaper service. Those who fled television because it imposed programs and schedules found in streaming the freedom to choose what to watch and when, but they could not escape the ads. The only apparent way out is to pay more. Thus, the Internet that was born from a teenage initiative at U.S. universities with a spirit of cooperation is today, above all, a huge multi-billion-dollar business.
By: Nestor Castillo, ForAllTechNews Director