Comment Re:Adblock plus is free (Score 1) 319
Think of it less as a way to avoid ads, more of a way for your favourite sites to stay in business.
Unfortunately I'm not certain how many of the IT / technology website are worth subscribing to. Too many of them are already hollow shills, with writers and "editors" who either lack technical or literary skills if not both. Scarcity of journalism, professionalism, or ethics makes me wonder whether they would just continue to produce more "sponsored content" which is merely advertising being sugar-coated as content, whether new product info, amazingly uncritical glowing reviews, verbatim printing of marketing material. Such that I would be paying to read/ view advertisements. Pretty much why people stopped paying for cable as soon as they could, why pay to get content filled with marketing? Let alone the growth in product placement / endorsement in prime time television.
For websites where the user community or user base is the actual value, then how much money should an active user who already contributes their time and knowledge and/or creativity, be expected to pay on top of their donated time and effort?
And I'm not a cheapskate, I have repeatedly subscribed to print magazine subscriptions for magazines that were 100% reader paid (i.e. no advertisements). A small number succeed, and others devolve or get absorbed into what they were trying to avoid. (e.g. Christopher Schwarz's Woodworking Magazine, Citizen Science Quarterly, etc.) One thing that is certain, is that they do have some of the least bias product reviews.