I’ve been watching the recent discussion of (and revelations about) the state of the online ad industry lately. It’s clearly out of control. We know ad revenue is the only source of income for many of the sites that provide the content we love (or at least prefer to waste our time with). Without income, only children or those who have childlike minds would expect these providers to work as indentured public servants just so we can enjoy yet another wildly inaccurate (and poorly edited) listicle. Ads are obnoxious but paywalling everything would certainly stifle the free flow of information that makes the Web the wonderful boon to global civilization it is. So what’s the solution? I have a “modest proposal” (that doesn’t involve eating children).

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