The situation is even less attractive for the arts and sciences. A vital new discovery in orthopedic surgery or synthetic organic chemistry will rarely attract as large a crowd as the Atlanta Braves or Oprah Winfrey or a naked lady. That price range coincides with the cost of buying names from mailing lists. What these numbers point to, and what any look at the communications industry will show, is that advertising supports information with broad appeal. Finely-crafted hypertext, on the other hand, excels at creating a dialog between individual readers and the text, at adapting itself to the specific needs of specific readers.
Advertising is a poor fit for supporting serious writing.
Paying for what we read makes more sense than paying advertisers. This should not be a surprise. Nor should it be a disappointment. Members of this audience, in turn, are willing to pay more than 2-8 cents for serious work that will interest, move, and reward them. If technology can be of any help in this arena, it is not by supporting serious work through a magical free lunch, courtesy of advertising.