One day I want to return to a web where articles are not filled with ads. I know, it's a big ask. Here's a smaller one: Can you please put all your ads and the text I want to read on one page? My ad blocker blocks your ads anyway so currently I'm mostly annoyed by having to click through four "pages" of a single web page. Web pages are endless! We don't have to turn the page on web pages. We can just scroll through the text on the web, like they did for millennia until someone invented pagination and pages. Don't make me click that Next link.
@alex ... but your click demonstrates that you have Engaged with the Content!
Back in the days of printed newspapers, there were ads, but at least they weren't in the middle of the story! If today's corporations invented the newspaper, the paper would have built-in explosives to launch the ads at your face.
@alex There's value, just not for the reader. The reader is merely annoyed.
@peterdrake Oh, I hadn't thought about that. There's value in forcing readers to click so that you know people read it… Hm. I wonder whether these buttons are all protected from bots, though. Otherwise, all the web crawlers would also count as engagement, no? You'd have to filter them by user agent to make sure… Gaaaah.