It’s not an internet thing, or even a technology thing. This is an example of the general debasement of society wrought through half a century of rampant sociopathic neoliberal shitfuckery.
One place I’d like to see this start to be corrected, is treating what is currently understood to be intellectual property as the intrinsically abundant resource it is, instead of the artificially scarce, zero-sum concept it’s currently encrusted as.
Advertising needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking.
It indiscriminately pollutes whatever environment it’s conducted within, and causes secondary harm to non-participants by incentivising hoarding of PII in the cheapest and least secure manner.