But I love internet chum! Don't forget "new law thing"; that's an important category.

That's bottom of the barrel advertisers. You're being punished because you likely don't allow them to track you.

> These news sites run ads that are borderline gore, disturbing images promoting snake oil weight loss or skin care treatments

And that doesn't raise an eye brow, but well worded AI articles based on sources is described as slop

If views increased, there'd also be more pressure to make more money from them.

The direction of views is irrelevant. What's relevant is the forward passage of time. As t -> infinity, shitty monetization -> infinity.

FT is (largely) subscriber-supported, AFAIU.

Though I don't know their revenue breakdown.

Somewhat famously, the similar (though unrelated) Economist relies on three revenue legs: subscriptions, advertising, and bespoke consulting through the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), roughly evenly distributed. The fact that these have different economic-cycle behaviours also helps stabilise the newspaper's income.

This article is about tech publications. I think of the FT as a financial/general news publication. Do others read them for their tech coverage?

Yes the ads were always there but that was the most efficient way to get the content/information. That has changed and even with ad blockers, websites are no longer the most efficient way to get to that content/infomation. That is what has changed

Mobile users (or other locked down devices where adblockers are forbidden) are still a decent chunk of traffic. It's much easier to just read the overview and not click through to the ad infestation, or even use a chatbot of choice as the search engine instead of going to Google, because "websites is how you get spammed with ads".

I don’t use ad block.

I find that when it messes with the layout or formatting of a website it’s really annoying, and I consider the volume and type of ads an important signal for a website’s trustworthiness.

Oh and plenty of devices don’t have easy access to ad block, like my work computer.

I use adblockers everywhere. I still see some ads, but never sexist ones. What are you seeing?

Technically I run a tracking blocker, it just happens to block 90+% of all ads because they want to track me.

I don't understand why ads aren't targeted towards the content of the page, rather than me as a person, that seems to be more correct in the majority of the cases.

I did accidentally try to play a YouTube video without signing into my premium account. That platforms is completely impossible to watch without premium or an ad blocker. YouTube managers should be forced to watch a few hours of content with ads enabled.

The average viewer probably doesn't know ad blockers exist.

I run adblock, but it's been not very effective lately. Sites either work around it, or just outright refuse to work.