Yeah, this is one of the problems with for-profit.
Even if the company could make the bottom line with only a subscription fee. Someone is willing to pay a lot for visibility, and they pay more the less other ads there is. So the paper/service/blog accepts one well paying ad. And nobody minds because it was just one ad.
But look at that money, let's do another ad, just once. But this isn't the first and only so they pay a little less. So maybe we could put in two ads, I mean they are relevant and nobody cares.
And suddenly ads are a commodity but you already have a ad-selling department and people willing to pay a little...
I mean I don't think ads are exclusively bad, but it's just the nature of the system that they will get worse until they are bad.
Even if the company could make the bottom line with only a subscription fee. Someone is willing to pay a lot for visibility, and they pay more the less other ads there is. So the paper/service/blog accepts one well paying ad. And nobody minds because it was just one ad.
But look at that money, let's do another ad, just once. But this isn't the first and only so they pay a little less. So maybe we could put in two ads, I mean they are relevant and nobody cares. And suddenly ads are a commodity but you already have a ad-selling department and people willing to pay a little...
I mean I don't think ads are exclusively bad, but it's just the nature of the system that they will get worse until they are bad.