[Iftheshoefits]

That audience is some huge percentage of the internet userbase, because some huge percentage of people are "clueless and naive." So people who want to just make money off a widely read website would do well to do what works. Just like how in the mobile gaming space irritating pay-to-play/in-app-purchase driven "games" are the money makers, and people who make games in order to make a lot of money should probably make a game like that.

[Turing_Machine]

Well, everyone has to make their own ethical choices.

Personally, I don't need the karma of annoying the customers, regardless of how much it may seem to work in the short term. I mean, you might as well be Zynga if you're going to do that.

No company survives in the long term by annoying and/or abusing their customers.

[PagingCraig]

Don't be a drama queen. Just because you "think" something doesn't work doesn't mean it doesn't at all.

[Turing_Machine]

I know it doesn't work with me.

Also, whether it "works" or not is completely orthogonal to whether it is ethical. Reading: it matters.