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Comment by Justsignedup | Hacker News Reader

I must argue a few points.

- Sites like thewirecutter.com make their money from affiliate links

- To try this experiment, I need to turn adblocking off. Which I am not willing to.

- Ads are not the answer. In fact, an interesting thing happened when a city banned the use of outdoor ads. http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/07/sao-paulo-city-with-no-... -- people are happier since less information assaults their brains, companies are still doing what they need to do because they needed to get creative ways to convince people why their products are worthwhile.

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> Sites like thewirecutter.com make their money from affiliate links

Yes, there are multiple ways to monetize things on the Internet. Affiliate links work very well for Wirecutter, because it is based around people trying to buy things. If you're forbes.com however, affiliate links don't really work.

> Ads are not the answer. In fact, an interesting thing happened when a city banned the use of outdoor ads...

If the problem we're trying to solve is, "How can we pay content creators what they need in order to continue producing content?" then an anecdote about outdoor advertising and billboards is largely irrelevant.

Of course, your proposed solution may be, "No one gets paid for content and the content ceases to exist because I don't like ads," and that may be what happens to some degree, but I personally wouldn't like that solution very much.

Is there really so much content scattered across so many sites that you couldn't easily pay for the content you enjoy, if it came to that? I would pay a small Tumblr subscription. I already patronize comic artists and musicians whose work I want to continue to exist. Jenna Marbles and Medium ego-pieces I wouldn't miss.

It could be argued that affiliate links on thewirecutter.com aren't ads so much as they are content. I realize they are advertising affiliates, but since that's what I go to the site for, I'm definitely not going to want to pay to get rid of them!

thewirecutter.com also has ads

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