I would wear this on a T-shirt.

It’s worth noting that the Times released this tool a decade ago. IIRC, around 2015 there was also a push for better colorblind friendly color palettes, especially on the heat map space (I remember watching a matplotlib demo, maybe, with viridis support). While there’s many visualization practices we do better at now, and while this could be due for a redux, I still think it"s one of the best interactives to date. It’s an OG for sure.

They are a net gain to the site owner IMO. Years ago you could make a case for cutting into ad revenue, but in this day and age it’s hard enough to be discoverable to generate any in the first place. Sites with high SEO are swollen with ads and fluff and useless. Nowadays I’m just glad to see something I wrote about or compiled spur healthy interactions and on page 1 of search engines.

That includes making third party dissemination easier. Perhaps I come away knowing and remembering more because of a bot’s concision. Maybe that makes me more likely to share your unique idea with others IRL. I dunno