[rebekah-aimee]

One could argue that the text or simple image ads are not a moral sinkhole like the article suggests. A lot of the text ads, I've found, are just the people who would normally rely on word of keyboard, except they're trying to get their first hundred users or whatever. Sometimes I would be part of their initial user base because what they're selling would genuinely make my life easier/better. That's not wrong.

The big, flashy ads (you know, the ones that are animated, or play sound or video, or do something dumb if you mouse over them for 1/4 second) are generally purchased by makers of lesser products in order to manipulate users into choosing them, because they can't rely on the quality of their products to advertise for them. I don't feel bad about blocking them.

So, I don't think unobtrusive ads are so bad. The trick is figuring out how to let them through. I turn off AdBlock on certain smaller sites with less obnoxious advertising and find that sometimes the bar is set too high for what's considered unobtrusive; the ads would theoretically be acceptable under the AdBlock description of what's unobtrusive, but get blocked anyway somehow.

As the market improves, advertising may gradually go away. That first clause is kind of difficult though.

The other question is how we can support people making content like blog posts and so on... without limiting the people who actually can't pay for stuff like that (kids with no jobs, etc). It's the same question as the one faced by music and software producers. When you can find an answer to that, well...

[NoGravitas]

I think one point the article makes that is easier to miss is that the ads themselves are not that important. Text/simple image/flashing video/smell doesn't really matter that much. Ads are ads. The real problem is how ad-dependence deforms content. Clickbait being the most blatant example.