> People told us if you put ads online, the internet would throw up on us. I thought the opposition was ridiculous. There is hardly an area of human activity th

> People told us if you put ads online, the internet would throw up on us. I thought the opposition was ridiculous. There is hardly an area of human activity that isn’t commercial. Why should the internet be the exception? One can never be 100% confident of the accuracy of quotes from decades past, but it's interesting to note the conflation of advertising and commerce here -- perhaps even more so if it's a contemporary reminiscence. At the time Wired produced physical magazines (albeit with advertisements within) so the idea of people paying them for thoughtful content was not alien.