Marco.org

One of the problems with pageview billing is that it incentivizes publishers to distract you while reading.

Every time they distract you and get you to click on something else, they make money.

But if you’re simply reading their content, they make less.

So they take every possible opportunity to try to get you to read their stories, and then, once you try to do exactly that, they try to get you to abandon what you’re reading before you’ve gotten very far so you can go view something else before abandoning it and continuing the cycle.

You’re not readers to them. You’re “eyeballs”.

You’re not customers. You’re the product.

They really hate when you actually read their content. That’s what they’re communicating by distraction-oriented design: “We don’t respect you, and we’re trying to aggravate you as much as possible, but not quite enough that you’ll stop coming.”