[PebblesRox]

I think the point is that they're opt-in advertising. You didn't pick up a book and find pages from the Sears catalog interspersed with the pages you were trying to read. You picked up the Sears catalog when you were considering a purchase and wanted to see what was available.

[what]

I get various catalogs/flyers/etc interspersed with my physical mail. They just send it to me, I never opted in.

[aezart]

Bulk mail should be banned, yeah.

[beambot]

When you visit a ad-supported news website, you're opting in too... No one is forcing you to use that website versus it's ad-free subscription alternatives, it's just that most people have decided they'd prefer the former

[wat10000]

The difference is that a catalog is advertising that the viewer actually wants to see. Ads on a news site are ads that the viewer merely tolerates because they go with the thing they want to see.