I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

The author writes well. Within a few paragraphs the reader entirely forgets that "I couldn't publish Crap Towns today" is a hypothetical.

Yeah I kept reading for the part where the author addresses the thesis, but that's not what it's about.

Is it about keeping you reading for long enough to show you a pop-up for his newsletter?

Just disable JavaScript and get on with your life

Just because these types of annoyances can be easily disabled by someone with a little bit of technical know-how doesn't mean that one doesn't have the right to be annoyed by the tendency and call it out.

I thought that too, it it quite hard to uncover the logical argument there. Appears to be sourced from conversations with journalists. I ended up just trusting that it was true in order to engage with the rest of the piece.

I stopped reading and got on with my life just fine.

But I like leaving snarky comments, so I'm not going to stop doing it.