Marco.org

Despite the recent advent of ad-supported programs, people have been paying for software for years. And developers put no less time and energy into writing software than a woodworker puts into fashioning a table or a chef puts into cooking a dinner—yet nobody demands that those products be provided on an ad-supported basis.

I’d go further and extend this excellent argument to web apps. They’re just as complex and costly to develop as desktop apps.

Personally, I hate ads. I’d rather pay a few bucks a month for most of the websites I use every day than have them saturated with ads.

And this would result in far more money for the sites’ operators than ad publishing, a business that involves tons of middlemen each taking huge commissions out of already-miniscule payouts.