The researchers (the source of the story) claim it's an ad fraud scheme and there aren't real readers.
> “The fact that no one is trying to correct these errors suggests that real people do not visit this site, otherwise it would be fixed on the first day,”
> “Real people have no reason to visit such sites. And if we see on such sites millions of highly busy users, then this can only be advertising fraud,” it said in its report.
Readers/users are getting screwed, since the money they're spending on Coke is going to feed content farms not intended for human consumption. If advertising revenues were going to legitimate companies, they would have legitimate content to read and use. As it is, they have to pay twice - once for their NYT subscription and once through the cola advertising budget - but only get one benefit.
and the readers / users