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That's pretty much a false dichotomy: a site must either support itself via ads, or cease to exist.

There are other ways to get money to support your work, and if those ways are too painful right now, that's just an opportunity for disruption. Even better, it's an opportunity to prove that disruption doesn't have to be exploitative.

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There are entire markets that cannot be accessed by publishers unless they subsidize content with ads. That is not a false dichotomy, that is a market requirement.

Not every website is the WSJ or Bloomberg, which cater to markets that are willing to pay for content.

Then maybe markets are the wrong tool to organized this kind of publishing.

Not saying that it has to be ads only. If there comes a disruptive alternative revenue model that allows all those websites to self-support themselves, I will be one of the first people to jump the ship and advocate for the ban of ads in favor of that new model.

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