Re: It's not so much the ads
"Unfortunately you'd then have to be selling something good enough for people to want to actually pay for it, which for 99% of the "content" out there simply isn't the case."
Exactly. Ad proponents seem to think that the fact someone is willing to visit a site is proof that they must therefore be willing to pay in order to do so. But most people consider most sites worth no more than the time it takes to read them. For the most part, adverts are simply an attempt to create income from something that no-one is actually willing to pay for. That doesn't mean we're obligated to watch the adverts; from the perspective of a consumer such a site is still worth nothing and costs nothing. If you try to force us to pay, whether through an actual paywall or any other means, we will simply stop visiting those sites. You can take a horse to the trough, but you can't force it to pay for the privilege of having water jammed down its throat.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
