[PhasmaFelis]

> There has to be a better way to finance the web

There is not. There are, however, many even worse ways to finance the web, as the article says.

Money has to come from somewhere. Either you the reader pay for content--which users have proven overwhelmingly unwilling to do--or your advertising views pay for content. I don't like it either, but polite, non-disruptive ads are the best possible solution. We need to push content and advertising provides to insult on those and only those.