"its usual argument that people want highly tailored content"
The New York Times published a research some days ago telling that no, actually users don't want highly tailored contents, and even less so when they are made aware of the data slurping behind the tailoring. The only ones accepting them are those hoping to get discount coupons for products in exchange - probably the same who spend a lot of time cutting them out from newspapers and buy a lot of things they don't need.
"Contextual" ads - if I'm on a photo gear site there's a good chance I'm interested in that and related goods - would probably work better than showing my photo gear ads while I'm perusing a software development site, or viceversa, but that would put control of the ads in the hands of the site owners, and being far simple, won't allow them to ask for the same prices and justify their very one existence.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
