I appreciate the concession that there is no explicit deal that readers will look at ads to pay for media. But there isn't actually such an implicit deal, eithe

I appreciate the concession that there is no explicit deal that readers will look at ads to pay for media. But there isn't actually such an implicit deal, either. There is an explicit deal between publishers and advertisers, in which money is traded for eyeballs. But to readers, publishers are simply offering free-to-read media in the hopes that they can monetize it sufficiently from views. Publishers can easily set up a paywall or payment system; this works very well in higher-value book-length writing. There there is an explicit deal in which publishers only make media available to readers who have purchased the right to read it. Likewise, plenty of people offer writing up for free, on HN, blogs, &c., without any plan to monetize it.