I can&#x27;t find where I read the notion on paid content originally, but it makes sense to me. With 3 network channels and the goal of maximizing ad revenue, you need a lot of stuff that a lot of people will watch, which mean generally adequate, inoffensive, middlebrow programming. Places like HBO and Netflix, though, live and die based on whether people a) sign up to pay, and b) keep paying. That gives a strong incentive to create very compelling, high-quality shows that a narrower audience will definitely watch. (I think the invention of reality TV has also helped, in that it has drained off the fraction of the audience that is happy with low-end, cheap-to-produce programming.)<p>Regarding me using an ad-blocker: your use of physical theft as an analogy for viewing content is just embarrassing on Hacker News. You should know better.<p>The difference is that if I steal headphones, the store is deprived of the headphones. Whereas if I read an article without also paying to download and display their ads, they still have the article. If they would like to only show content and ads at the same time, there are technological fixes they could apply. If they do, I won&#x27;t be working around them.<p>They presumably haven&#x27;t because there is value to them in people reading and sharing their content whether or not ads are viewed. And also because the marginal cost of a view is so small that it&#x27;s best expressed in scientific notation. Personally, I don&#x27;t bother trying not to read their stuff because a) I am looking for opportunities to pay people who are willing (e.g., I pay the NYT), b) I hope it&#x27;ll contribute to the signal to them that their ad-driven model is not sustainable, and c) I&#x27;m not the level of obsessive that is going to carefully decide which sites to visit because I might be costing large media companies epsilon cents until they get their acts together.