Maybe the web should die by Paul Miller

I click Buzzfeed links and Verge links and Awl links and Polygon links for the same reason anybody does: there's a hole in my heart, and I hope 300-400 words of web content will fill it

A couple more assessments:

wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where I never have to read something that was written for the sole purpose of traffic and revenue?

More than half the time when I'm at Buzzfeed and The Verge (I keep using Buzzfeed and The Verge as examples because I visit them a lot apparently), I get the distinct feeling that this publication has “no special interest in publishing beyond value extraction through advertising”. And if that’s the case, then it’s really important that I, as a human being with presumably better things to do, should avoid publications that make me feel this way.

online publications seem to have coalesced around the worst elements: huge ads, disposable content, auto-play videos, Like and Tweet buttons which follow you around the internet, hidden embedded pixels that try and guess your eye color so they can sell you shampoo more effectively.

Towards the end:

The reason there’s no solid revenue alternative to advertising for most of these websites is that most of what they put out is junkfood clickbait designed to increase revenue through ads. They can’t monetize it because it’s worthless. Is that ironic?