[jrabone]

No, no they won't. Not my users, anyway, because I block your ads at the DNS resolver level by redirecting queries to my own Apache instance, which serves single pixel images or empty JS as necessary.

Despite protestations in TFA to the contrary, publishers CAN'T be trusted not to create a tunnel for bad actors via adservers. They don't have the level of control required to do so. If you want the $$$, change your business model. If it turns out that no-one wants to pay for your content, perhaps it's not worth anything?

[antocv]

Wikipedia is a good example, its been on donations for years and is still going.

[neiloconnor]

Wikipedia is a great example of where donations DO work. I couldn't imagine an internet without it, and I'm happy to donate and support it.

Sadly the data suggests that for most websites donations are not a viable alternative to ads. Some numbers here: http://blog.pagefair.com/2014/introducing-pagefair-ads/

I think the challenge is that we use many different websites every day. I've probably visited sites today that I've never been to before and will never visit again. These guys are not getting a donation from me.

Maybe the future internet will consist of a small number of donation-supported sites, but wouldn't it be sad to lose all this variety?

[dublinben]

If those sites aren't providing anything of value, what are we really losing?