I don't think they are swearing off advertising completely - as the commenter above says, its more a result of the economic environment. Of course, innovation in the ad space, especially to replace old-school banner ads would be a huge opportunity.
yes, you can imagine worldwide frustration over poor monetization of these "internet eyeballs" is reaching a boiling point. i am VERY surprised the solution isn't here yet
>but you could create content people are willing to pay for.
I'm sure he/she can try, but not sure / could achieve this goal. Out of the thousands of web/online services, I only pay money to 4:
1password,
paypal,
skype, and
itunes.
While in theory one could get at least one dude to pay for a service, I doubt a randomly selected poster on Hacker News can get enough cash this way to buy a taco on a regular basis (i.e. often enough to survive on the calories). At least in the current situation.
