my original post said paywalls OR donation buttons. funny that you mention wikipedia, poster child for the donation model. thanks for helping me make my point, i guess?
slashdot got by without advertising when it was much smaller. i promise you that its operating expenses have gotten much higher. could it survive on premium accounts and donations alone? maybe. maybe not. if it were my company, i certainly wouldn't want to roll the dice to see if it survived.
yes, XKCD gets by without ads. congratulations, you have found one of the outliers.
also, congrats on being so leet that you don't see ads on slashdot and don't use gmail. you are also an outlier. and you come off sounding like an elitist asshole. 'man the internet's first albums were the best. now it's mainstream crap.' well, yeah, it is. welcome to the world. just because you were here first doesn't mean you get to dictate how everyone else has to use it. people want free content, and advertising is how they get it, whether YOU like it or not.
you are welcome to restrict your web traffic to sites that don't use ads. the people that were putting stuff out 13 years ago without ads, they are still around. and the ones that aren't? advertising didn't kill them.