Kontra on advertising models:
>Why? Because shouting creates page views and clicks, and…well, there’s nothing more to say: shouting sells.
And:
>Nobody *likes* advertising, and yet we seem to be stuck with its corrupting effects on public discourse online.
Lastly:
>Advertising online has been corruptive of user privacy and editorial integrity.
As I have mentioned before, I hate advertise — so too have I mentioned that I subscribe to over 500 RSS feeds. That’s a lot of feeds, a lot of shouting, and a lot of advertising. These past two weeks I have been very busy and I have grown incredibly annoyed with all of the noise on the web — all of which is simply shouting for the sake of getting attention, page views, and ultimately money. It’s actually pretty sad if you think about it.
If I look at the hot view in Fever° for the past week, the hottest story was a bunch of bullshit speculation about a 13″ retina MacBook Pro. Yay. I didn’t read a single one.
Here’s the thing though, it’s not just advertising that causes the problem, it’s also lack of advertising. That is if people run a blog with no advertising, they shout loudly to get heard, to get page views, and eventually to get advertising. They aren’t alone, I am just as guilty from time to time.
The benefit that I have are that the people paying for this site give me some leeway when I pen something stupid, tell me about it, and I can change. When I was on the advertising model and I penned something stupid they just went elsewhere. I’m not sure which *is* better, but I know what *I* like better.