Maybe the alternative is "desperation". In your publisher example, lets say they needed 12 ad units per page to break even. At that point, you might start losin

Maybe the alternative is "desperation". In your publisher example, lets say they needed 12 ad units per page to break even. At that point, you might start losing people to a bad signal-to-noise ratio. At the end of the day, it's a viable business model. It's not about the money in of itself. But if you can't support yourself and your business with the "right level" of advertising and you can't persuade people to give you their money any other way, your business model is failing, not advertising in of itself.