[uoou]

Which you freely choose to do.

You exist in the market as it is, not as you wish it to be. If you can't find a way to make it pay (if that is your priority/a requirement) then you'll fail and someone else will try. If no one can think of a way to make it pay, then we'll lose such sites until someone can.

Which is fine. Better that than ads.

[andymcsherry]

If you remove the incentive to freely distribute content, eventually people will stop doing it. When this happens, most of the content you enjoy will end up behind a paywall. The reason you don't see it now is only a small portion of the internet is aware of and uses these products. Most of us can't work for free, and I imagine a substantial portion of this reader base's income is directly or indirectly supported by advertising.

[uoou]

Yes, I said that in my previous post.

And we'll go back to having a greater proportion of hobbyist sites. People doing it for the love of it rather than the money. That's fine.

I think advertising is a terribly crude way to make money from a website, as well as being cultural and aesthetic pollution. I think we'll look back on this period when websites were ad-funded with embarrassment.

Of course, I can't think of a better idea.

But if the use of ad-blockers increases then many many sites will go pop (the really good ones - the ones that people are actually actively willing to pay for - will survive of course) until some clever sausage eventually thinks of a better idea. And that will be great. Good old free market at work.

[jessaustin]

... most of the content you enjoy will end up behind a paywall.

This is often threatened, occasionally attempted, and rarely continued after the resulting precipitous traffic drop. "Content" is not rare. If a particular producer can't figure out a remuneration technique that doesn't annoy consumers, she'll find her lunch eaten by competing producers who can.

[uoou]

Also, if there's advertising then it's not free.