Why so many news websites are getting harder to love

I want to like online news. I really do.

Instant access to stories, context and information should be one of the best things about the internet. Instead, too many news websites feel like an endurance test.

You click. You wait. You scroll. A video starts playing. A pop-up appears. The page jumps as more ads load. By the time you can actually read, your focus has already drifted.

It’s not that publishers shouldn’t make money. Journalism costs money, and that’s fair. The problem is that, on many sites, the reader experience feels secondary to advertising.

Slow load times, cluttered layouts and intrusive formats make the act of reading unnecessarily frustrating. It feels like the site is fighting you rather than serving you.

Here’s the part that often gets missed. I would happily pay a reasonable monthly fee for a better experience. Cleaner pages, faster loading, fewer interruptions. I don’t want free at all costs. I want good.

Too many publishers are still chasing short-term ad impressions instead of long-term trust. But readers have options now. If a site annoys them, they simply leave.

The irony is that there is great journalism being produced every day. But if the experience is painful, people will never stick around long enough to appreciate it.

Attention is a choice. Right now, too many news websites are making it an easy one to walk away from.

Anyone else feel the same?