User blog comment:Tedgill/Making Ads Better: How We're Going to Do It/@comment-24826722-20170131222933

As others have already pointed out:

- Ads are necessary, since that's what pays to keep the site running, and...

- Most of the ads seem to be pretty good: relatively on-topic, relatively small. But...

- Occasionally there are massive ads that take up huge swaths of real estate at the top of the browser page; and

- Occasionally there are ads blocking content that (apparently) you literally cannot dismiss, other than to reload the page; and

- Occasionally there are ads that make the page unusable on a mobile browser.

Personally, I'd advocate for more, smaller ads that are site-friendly. I don't mind seeing lots of ads on a page, as long as (1) they're not blocking my content, (2) they're not making my content hard to find, and (3) they behave nicely in the page. If both outer columns were filled with ads...more power to Fandom. Those three are my "must have" criteria. Ads not being click-baity is a "nice to have" for me, but not a "must have."

That having been said...I feel for the people who do a lot of customization to get a specific look-and-feel on their wikis, and have that destroyed by ads. I don't have this problem because I opted to remain as generic as possible in my look. (I'm about the content, not about the ambience.) But if my content were related to (say) some fiction franchise, I too would want ambience, and would probably be more bothered by ads.