ParisLemon

Alexis Madrigal:

Worse, readers may click through your slideshow, but they’ll hate you a liiitttle bit more than they did when they got to the site. And I bet they’ll feel the same way about whatever advertiser was unlucky enough to get stuck on the page with some stupid thing that a reporter did with a little bit of hate in his heart and fingertips. 

It’s a nice thought that readers will hate the sites that post slideshows and the advertisers that advertise on said slideshows, but come on, there’s a very simple reason so many sites use them. They do drive pageviews and fill ad inventory.

This isn’t rocket science or magic. Shit content works in a pageview-driven environment (which like it or not, we’re in). In fact, it often works better than great content.

Put another way: TL;DR.