The sponsorship model is once again becoming popular on the web, something I'm not sure if I'm happy about. On the one hand, it's a lot nicer than ads, but OTOH

The sponsorship model is once again becoming popular on the web, something I'm not sure if I'm happy about. On the one hand, it's a lot nicer than ads, but OTOH, it makes me more suspicious any recommendations from people who have been sponsored. Did you recommend that we use that product because you genuinely like it, and thus accepted sponsorship from them, or are you only pretending to like it because you're getting paid? It's hard to tell. The "sponsored by viewers like you" approach (aka Patreon, the NPR pledge drive, etc) solves this problem, but it's rare that anything has an audience big enough to support it. But hey, one of the benefits of sponsored content is that at least the ads (if that's how the sponsorship works: it usually is in podcasts and video, which are where this is really taking off, moreso than blogs) are entertaining. I skip ads as quickly as possible for the most part. OTOH, I have repeatedly watched an hour-long compilation of ads for SquareSpace taken from the Co-Optional podcast. Which were compiled by popular demand. So that's a benefit to sponsorship for companies: if you can get me to willingly watch your ads, because they're that good, you've effectively won.