You can - without detailed tracking - identify rough location of the user. (IP etc.)
You can pick ads based on the content, not based on the user. (A site with beauty tips probably has different readers from a site on woodworking; a site with celebrity news has different readers than deep political analysis)
And yes, Google and Facebook would make less money (disclaimer: I have a handful Alphabet shares in my portfolio and probably funds containing those) and yes spread would be higher, but this could still pay a lot of bills and interestingly could lead to revert from clickbait to proper content, as readers of proper content are more likely the target audience for high-paid ads.
You can - without detailed tracking - identify rough location of the user. (IP etc.)
You can pick ads based on the content, not based on the user. (A site with beauty tips probably has different readers from a site on woodworking; a site with celebrity news has different readers than deep political analysis)
And yes, Google and Facebook would make less money (disclaimer: I have a handful Alphabet shares in my portfolio and probably funds containing those) and yes spread would be higher, but this could still pay a lot of bills and interestingly could lead to revert from clickbait to proper content, as readers of proper content are more likely the target audience for high-paid ads.