"Trust us, and everyone connected to us, and everyone connected to them.""
Wired is asking its readership to compromise, without being willing to make any compromises themselves. They're asking us to trust them on a one-to-one basis, but that's now how trust works in a network. We have to trust Wired, and trust every single one of the companies or servers they include content and scripting from, and trust every single one of the companies or servers that these companies or servers include content from. We're looking at trusting at least a hundred actors here, quite likely more.
"Trust us, and only us."
A much better compromise would be to ask us to turn off ad blocking on their site, while in turn guaranteeing that every single script and asset served on their domain will also be served from their own servers, after having undergone at least some type of inspection. Then we at least have a reasonable basis for trust.
Are you sure Wired is not compromising? Maybe they want to charge $5 but only charging $1. Will you pay a much higher price for all the things you suggest Wired should do?
Charging one dollar instead of five isn't compromising, that's haggling. I don't think anyone could begrudge them charging money, it's just that they don't give their technically savvy audience a real choice. It's either pay up, or go read something else.
There is a third option, "accept to view ads with the associated ecosystem which includes tracking". How many more options do you want? At that point Wired is happy to lose you as a customer. You have anyway dodged the question on whether you will pay $5. At the end of the day someone has to foot the bill. Allow them to define their user base and serve them. It is a challenging time for publishers.
Part of the challenge for publishers lies in deciding what they really are. Following a quantity over quality model might work well for many. On the other hand, Wired (as distinct from Condé Nast) have traditionally had a different kind of relationship with their readers. There's an emotional bond between many in the tech community and the Wired brand, which calls for a higher level of trust, but at the same time delivers a much more loyal type of readership.
I would probably not pay for access to Wired without advertising, regardless the price. I am more than willing to pay for services, or access to information that I can rationalise as an investment, but (apparently like many others) not for entertainment. On the other hand, I'm more than willing to disable ad blockers on wired.com, as long as I know everything include is served from their own network, and that they take my security as seriously as I do. Some friends can be trusted with unsupervised access to your home, but those are special friends. Wired have to convince us they're a special friend.
Wired is asking its readership to compromise, without being willing to make any compromises themselves. They're asking us to trust them on a one-to-one basis, but that's now how trust works in a network. We have to trust Wired, and trust every single one of the companies or servers they include content and scripting from, and trust every single one of the companies or servers that these companies or servers include content from. We're looking at trusting at least a hundred actors here, quite likely more.
"Trust us, and only us."
A much better compromise would be to ask us to turn off ad blocking on their site, while in turn guaranteeing that every single script and asset served on their domain will also be served from their own servers, after having undergone at least some type of inspection. Then we at least have a reasonable basis for trust.