That was a long time ago and even mailing lists and BBS had ads.

You can see it already on sites like Reddit and Buzzfeed, users block ads so the only solution is paid content hidden as user content. Be happy that, for now, it is more lucrative to separate the ads from the content, because the alternative is even worse.

In some ways, this last shred of free journalism we all enjoy online is because of those big ugly ads. Without them, no journalism, just illusion.

Let me counter that with: As long as the quality of online journalism is measured by clicks and ad impressions, its purpose is not journalism.

What else would you like it measured by? Paid subscriptions? Because we all know how that goes.

The breadth of online journalism we see today is precisely because of those ads everyone claims to hate. It allows anyone to quickly join the pot and lets the market decide their value. Without ads we'd be stuck with the 4 fuhrer model we had for the last 100 years.

Why wouldn't donations work? Something like Gratipay (formerly Gittip) for journalists?

Because a journalist needs a minimum of $50 a day, it's a hit based business, and readers are fickle. Everything you say must be in complete agreement with their world view to get a donation. One mistake and they're gone.

Also, it's been tried before and has failed every time.

A subscription based donation system might still work though.

Ok, thanks. It was an honest question, btw, thanks for taking it as such.