The NYT, as well as just about every other newspaper, has always had ads in the print edition whether you subscribed or not. Subscriptions have rarely paid the full cost of producing a newspaper. In the case of magazines, I would argue that the whole point of the magazine is to carry ads that target a specific demographic. The articles are just there to make you buy it.
Yeah but they’re different. Print ads don’t grab your attention in the way animated ads mid article do. You can even fold the paper to ignore them if they are. I can read a newspaper with ads no problem, but NYT without an adblocker (or in app) is endlessly distracting to me.
For anyone that read/reads physical newspapers, do this little exercise: try to remember a time that a printed newspaper ad prevented you reading an article or made it significantly more difficult. I can't personally think of a single example.
Before even finishing this sentence, I can think of five or six examples of awful internet ads that completely ruined the experience I was having (spank this monkey NOW!).
I'm really glad you brought this point up. I used to read physical newspapers, and I never had any problem with their advertisements. If you ask me to think of invasive internet ads, I can give you a dozen specific, frustrating examples (smack the money anyone?) without effort, but I struggle to remember a single time that I felt like a physical newspaper ad ever interfered with my reading experience.
Something like 40% of users employ an ad blocker, and the other 60% likely don't know ad blockers exist. I think that's a pretty strong signal that something is wrong with internet ads specifically - people are willing to accept ads in other aspects of their life when it's not so invasive.
To me the issue is that ad vendors in the app knows what you read, the NYT have over 300 vendors listed in their privacy section, the Economist about 80. But if you refuse in the NYT they nag you over and over again for accepting cookies.
It’s crazy not to have privacy reading a magazine.