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alberth01/15/20264 repliesview on HN

Who would have guessed the Smithsonian of all organizations would have so many video popup ads.

Isn’t the greatest experience on mobile when so little of the content can be seen due to popups.


Replies

quinncom01/15/2026

Smithsonian Mag used to be the Institution’s brain‑child, now it’s just a click‑bait lifestyle tabloid full of celebs. The magazine’s editorial directives have diverged from the institutions mission. They care more about pageviews and ads than research.

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dyauspitr01/15/2026

I can appreciate their troubles. How is someone supposed to pay for all the overhead that goes into research and writing these articles without a source of income. People also seem dead against subscriptions. The only way that seems to work is appealing to the LCD and raking in stream bucks but not all media/literature, especially the valuable kind, is conducive to that model.

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Zardoz8401/15/2026

Ads ? What Ads...

I forgot that I use Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin. I don't see any ads NEVER.

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shiroiuma01/16/2026

It always amazes me how many people on "hacker news" don't use an ad-blocker.

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