I am happy to pay directly for content that is interesting and useful to me. For a long time, I subscribed to computer magazines like Byte, even when I had Internet access and supposedly had all the information at my fingertips.
These days, I can't remember the last time I've read a good article on technology someplace other than on a blog, a website of a group of enthusiasts. If I ever ended up on websites like Wired or The Verge in the last five years or so, it was definitely by mistake.
Many publishers make money through ads because most people wouldn't pay a dime for that stuff. Catchy is good enough to make people waste time, but not money.
Edit: oh -- it's not all black and white, either. I use an ad blocker, but I whitelist the pages where I think it's worthwile. It's not an all-or-nothing thing. Publishers who put out quality content and whose ads don't try to serve me malware (eh, Forbes?) get whitelisted. Everyone else, to quote the famous nihilistic philosopher B. B. Rodriguez, can bite my shiny metal ass.
These days, I can't remember the last time I've read a good article on technology someplace other than on a blog, a website of a group of enthusiasts. If I ever ended up on websites like Wired or The Verge in the last five years or so, it was definitely by mistake.
Many publishers make money through ads because most people wouldn't pay a dime for that stuff. Catchy is good enough to make people waste time, but not money.
Edit: oh -- it's not all black and white, either. I use an ad blocker, but I whitelist the pages where I think it's worthwile. It's not an all-or-nothing thing. Publishers who put out quality content and whose ads don't try to serve me malware (eh, Forbes?) get whitelisted. Everyone else, to quote the famous nihilistic philosopher B. B. Rodriguez, can bite my shiny metal ass.