It is not hard, with 20/20 hindsight, to see what went wrong. In the blink of an eye, the spectacularly long-lived success of the publishing industry succumbed under the weight of too much free content flooding the internet, causing a crash in the value of content.
"Building sites that perform well for humans, not search engines, [is one change necessary to] reverse the damage we've done to ourselves in the last 15 years of the internet.
Kelly is the poster child for the next-generation publisher who places primacy on creating great content that drives loyal visitors. Not so easy to do -- but ultimately that's probably more profitable than just herding traffic that will leave as soon as they got there.