interestingly you paid for a newspaper or a magazine and it was full of ads even if you paid or subscribed. And most people liked it that way. Computer Shopper was way more ads than content and was immensely popular
That speaks to the relative intrusiveness of those ads, and the quality of the ads as well. Newspaper advertising was generally well distributed so that it didn't interfere with reading, and its black and white on paper look wasn't jarring.
Magazine ads, at least in specialized pubs like computer magazines, were actually useful. As a kid, I subscribed to Dragon Magazine because I played D&D, and the ads were half the fun for me.
You'd think that with the hyper-targeting of online ads, that we'd be happy with them, too. But the actual products behind them are usually low quality spam. And we've lost a lot of discoverability from all this targeting. Sometimes it's good to see things that aren't aimed directly at your immediate demographic.
