"Is my attention worth nothing? Are my contributions in the form of comments without value?"
Pretty much. You can't pay rent with "attention". It's just like the people that try to get designers to do work for free because of "exposure".
"Regardless I never agreed to view ads in trade for access to content and to be completely fair it was not offered to me in this way."
Yeah, you kinda did. This is the implicit agreement of the internet. If you don't like it, that's fine; there's nothing wrong with that. The point at which it does become wrong is, instead of going to some other website that doesn't do this, you continue to view the content, draining their bandwidth and resources, as though you are entitled to the content. If you don't want to view ads, go to sites that either offer content on a subscription basis and pay that, or on a donation basis.
Pretty much. You can't pay rent with "attention". It's just like the people that try to get designers to do work for free because of "exposure".
"Regardless I never agreed to view ads in trade for access to content and to be completely fair it was not offered to me in this way."
Yeah, you kinda did. This is the implicit agreement of the internet. If you don't like it, that's fine; there's nothing wrong with that. The point at which it does become wrong is, instead of going to some other website that doesn't do this, you continue to view the content, draining their bandwidth and resources, as though you are entitled to the content. If you don't want to view ads, go to sites that either offer content on a subscription basis and pay that, or on a donation basis.