OK, you may say, but doesn't this give people a voice for the first time, allowing vibrant discussion and debate in a way that was never possible before?

No. I think that it allows untruths, myths and prejudice to spread insidiously through society, and actually limits debate. True, I don't think this is the case with all articles. Comments on articles and blogs about special interest subjects often do add something useful – as these people are generally informed about and genuinely interested in their subject.

However, I invariably find comments at the end of news articles depressingly half-baked, and this is true whatever online publication I'm reading, at whatever point on the political spectrum. I don't even blame newspaper websites such as the Telegraph, Times and Guardian for allowing commenting – with profit margins being cut as more and more people switch to reading news online, they're all trying to capture a market share.

But this leads on to another problem. As newspaper buying decreases, these companies are having to do more and more with less and less. The reporters that haven't been made redundant now have to write more and more articles than ever before (meaning they often have to rely on press releases – which by definition have a vested interest in the subject), and publish them in more and more formats. This model is unsustainable. Just as reporters have less time to fact check and do investigative journalism, so poorly informed "user comments" proliferate.

However, I believe that we may be reaching a turning point. Online content providers may soon be switching to a subscription model, making people pay for content. This way, perhaps it would encourage these businesses to invest in good reporting and fact checking, limiting the need for users to generate the interest in the site (relying at the moment, as they do, on advertising alone for revenue).

I have no idea how this transition would be made – if one website goes this way, will others follow immediately, or will they try to stay free as long as possible to mop up as many users as possible? It has been been suggested that Murdoch's NewsCorp may make a move to a subsciption model soon, so we may find out soon.

All I know is that I now resolutely stop at the bottom of news articles and find I've lost nothing by leaving comments well alone.