Never mind, I am seeing pop-under ads today.

Ick.

I recently read an article somewhere pointing out how effective text ads are when compared to popup/popunder and banner ads. It said that these ads have a far higher click-through than the other choices.

One type of ad that is often done really well is the interstitial ads you see appearing on more sites these days. They are certainly more intrusive than any other type of ad, but they are often entertaining enough to overcome that.

For all the companing people do about the intrusiveness of ads, I think 90% of the time the problem they really have is that the sponsors are lower-end, like late-night infomercials, instead of high-quality national advertisers with a significant level of creative effort invested in the impression.

So, having rambled on about all of that (are you sorry you asked, Dan? ), I'd say that I'd prefer to buy a subscription to flyertalk (ala slashdot's system that allows you to buy your way out of x ad pages) rather than deal with low-quality ads of any variety. With better ads, I wouldn't care.