"It blows my mind that people actually mention sponsored content as a feasible alternative. It's true that ad blocking will ultimately drive many sites there, but I really value the firewall we have between our writers and ad sales. Not only that, but I really don't want to read a site running ads-that-look-like-content. It saddens me that so many seem to miss the implications of doing this."

Well, it saddens me that people running adblockers will force many sites to do this to survive.