I suppose advertising is evil, but mostly I ignore it :-). And lots of websites have it and don't seem to draw this kind of fire. A few people involved in this strike or boycott said they would no longer recommend lj, including teachers who said they used to recommend it to students. I don't get that. One of the most useful sites for research of lots of kinds is www.nytimes.com. Their premium accounts (which let you search their archives back to 1851) used to be only for those who paid or get home delivery. Now it's free (and I'm thinking of giving up home delivery). I assume that's because they want their hits up for their advertisers. Fine with me.

I'm particularly surprised that advertising is such a concern among folks active in media fandom, where the content they're fannish about is, in large part, commercial television.