[slowmovintarget]

More to the point, they could go to the trouble of hosting and serving their own curated advertising, like newspapers used to do.

They could forbid JavaScript, require simple URLs, and flow their content around well-defined and crafted ad locations. Their site would load quickly, the ads would still attend to the image they intend to project to the reader. Metrics on such ads wouldn't require third party JavaScript to monitor.

None of their readers would be subject to malware. Reader and provider would not be an antagonistic relationship.

They could do all of these things. They seem to have chosen another path, and made the choice for their readers--those they've kept--at the same time.