The Price of Free Google Report.
Proton analyzed over 54,000 demographic profiles using 2025 ad auction data to estimate what advertisers pay to reach different types of Americans. The range is much wider than you might expect.
The average American generates about $1,605 a year in advertising value. A 35- to 44-year-old man in Bozeman, MT, without children, using a desktop and making high-value corporate searches, generates an estimated $17,929.30. An 18- to 24-year-old father in Fort Smith, AR, using an Android phone and making low-value searches, generates $31.05.
That’s a 577x difference between two people using the same free service.
The point I was making was that if no data was gathered then people would have to pay for internet services such as emails, search, maps etc. That is not going to happen because people don’t want to put their hands in their pockets.
Why? Advertising was a thing way before digital data collection and personalized ads was a thing. Let’s imagine a current world where data collection was illegal. Do you think Google would make no money in this scenario? I am pretty sure they could still sell ads even if they were doing no personalized data collection. They could sell these ads based on where those ads could be displayed. So, instead of advertisers targeting specific demographics based on their personal data, they would instead choose what kinds of websites or search results they would like to display their ads in. Problem solved, no?
It seems like you are either too young to remember this, or maybe forgotten about it because of the norm we have been living in for so long, but internet existed way before personalized data collection, screw that, way before even Google was a thing, and we were still able to use the internet. Who do you think trained all these slop genarators if not the pre-AI small hobbyist and enthusiast websites that shared their knowledge with the rest of the world, usually for free. Hell, you are literally on a decentralized network of forums, most of which has been running by people paying for the costs themselves, or with the help of donations.
I would argue, something as essential as an email address should be a government provided service, since you can’t even login to your online government services, or can’t even open bank accounts without one.