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rocketpig

macrumors member
Jan 25, 2006
35
73
If they do that. people will not return
It becomes a revenue per user game at that point. If ads provide you $.02 per user, paywalling the content means you need to get one out of 50 users to give you a dollar and that keeps you revenue neutral.

So you could literally cut your website traffic to 2% of its ad traffic and make the same money. If your content is good and in demand, particularly with an older and/or wealthier audience, it’s very viable to do this.

By the bye, I run a network of sites that bring in several million unique users a year. I’m well versed in what it takes to run a content site and keep it profitable.
 

th0masp

macrumors 6502a
Mar 16, 2015
837
504
Firefox here on all my devices from desktop to phone (big reason for me to choose an Android phone over iPhone), Ublock Origin, NoScript, Don't care about cookies addon (thanks, EU) and it's bliss. Recommended. :)

Can not at all understand how people manage without - setting up a computer for someone else from vanilla drives me crazy - or why they would ever pick Chrome. But to each their own I suppose.

Been using adblockers since Siemens Webwasher and am not exactly feeling guilty either. The user experience is just terrible without them, be it animated GIFs of the past or modern day pop-up in-your-face overlays.
 

Nermal

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
20,665
4,087
New Zealand
I have no idea how people actually sbsorb the content of the piece they are reading with all that movement going on.
I cannot.
I was playing one of those Wordle-style games at one point, and there was an ad for... washing machines, I think it was, with the ad animating and changing colours. I clicked the "x" on the ad, and it asked "why did you close this ad?". The most fitting option was "ad is inappropriate". I suspect that that option is designed for ads with nudity, foul language, etc. but I considered it fairly inappropriate to have a distracting ad when trying to solve a puzzle.

I got a little bit of enjoyment out of clicking "inappropriate" on every animated ad, until eventually the option disappeared!
 

Grey Area

macrumors 6502
Jan 14, 2008
423
1,004
The more people that run ad blockers, the more likely your favorite sites are going to end up behind a paywall. Good content sites require a lot of revenue to operate.
That is certainly true, and I have seen it happen many times over the years. But to be honest (including with myself), virtually all of my favorite sites are guilty pleasures, time wasters. I often catch myself aimlessly browsing some site/forum/subreddit/... thinking, why don't I do something useful instead, or go exercise, or read a book or whatever.

If places like that shut me out, I will take a long hard look at the situation: Do I really want to pay to continue wasting my time? Usually the answer is no and I just leave the place. In the rare cases when I did pay, I ended up regretting this, because it made me feel I had to spend/waste even more time there to get my money's worth. So nah, I will block ads whenever I can, and if sites lock me out, so be it, and shame on me for not having the discipline to leave earlier.
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,683
2,920
It's not entirely the fault of the websites. Early on the idea that everything is "free" - free music streaming with ads, free news via Google New, etc. was implanted in peoples' heads. I was talking with someone years ago about google news and how they weren't paying for their news sources. Reliable news costs money for reporters, travel, etc. He was totally uninterested. All he wanted was free news. The fact that there is no easy way to pay a website for a one time use is also a factor when we go to so many. The companies are trying to survive and advertising is the only way many of them who can't do a paywall fund their sites.

Consumers aren't blameless either. Look at the streaming services coming out with ad supported tiers. If these were rejected then the message would be clear that consumers don't want ads. The fact that consumers are embracing ad based streaming just encourages the ad based compensation model. If they were serious about not liking ads they just wouldn't use the ad based ones but would use only those without them - likely because of a paywall. They aren't doing it.
 

LeeW

macrumors 601
Feb 5, 2017
4,247
9,239
Over here
Ads are certainly annoying, but on the flip side, don't complain as more and more sites/services start moving to subscription services due to the lack of ad revenue keeping them free. At least support your favourite sites.
 
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Saturn007

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2010
1,468
1,350
It is an unknown road with consequential implications — one very different from the road we chose.

Only thing is *we* didn't ”choose” it — it was imposed on us!

In any event, much appreciated your portrait of the road not taken. It could have been a free, open, educative, useful, privacy preserving, non-commercial, and non-distracting Internet.
 

npmacuser5

macrumors 68000
Apr 10, 2015
1,777
2,012
Tracking ads need to be illegal. The old tapping of the landline illegal without a court order. These ads are magnitudes worse. I will not turn off my ad blocking for any site. FYI, this site one of the highest tracking ad offenders. A summary last week, 82% of websites had tracking ads and my systems block 25,000 tracking ads. Just plain criminal.
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
Speaks volumes...
1711290770238.png

1711290986822.png

It's utterly ludicrous the sheer amount of ad's being continuously pushed and they wonder why we block them. Maybe if they respected the users, we would be more inclined to white list their sites :rolleyes:

Q-6
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
Ads are certainly annoying, but on the flip side, don't complain as more and more sites/services start moving to subscription services due to the lack of ad revenue keeping them free. At least support your favourite sites.
Personally I'm fine with it, as that way there might be a slight chance of reducing the garbage...

Q-6
 
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za9ra22

macrumors 65816
Sep 25, 2003
1,441
1,897
Tracking ads need to be illegal. The old tapping of the landline illegal without a court order. These ads are magnitudes worse. I will not turn off my ad blocking for any site. FYI, this site one of the highest tracking ad offenders. A summary last week, 82% of websites had tracking ads and my systems block 25,000 tracking ads. Just plain criminal.
For me, this is the exact point. I can live with some advertising, though the kind @Nermal describes is an example of the kind that isn't at all appropriate for the circumstance. The problem being that we don't get a choice, and absent that, you either block everything or leave the door open for anything and everything.

But that leakage of personal data, activities, and being tracked for someone else's benefit is simply not acceptable to me, at all. Ads are one thing, but a site that seeks to monetize my simple presence without my knowledge or approval is barely better than a common pickpocket out to steal my wallet.

When website owners take a responsible attitude to personal and data privacy, I'll turn my ad blockers off. My finger isn't lingering anywhere near the button in expectation.
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
Tracking ads need to be illegal. The old tapping of the landline illegal without a court order. These ads are magnitudes worse. I will not turn off my ad blocking for any site. FYI, this site one of the highest tracking ad offenders. A summary last week, 82% of websites had tracking ads and my systems block 25,000 tracking ads. Just plain criminal.
Very much agree as a large majority of these trackers are privacy focused. They mostly dont have the courtesy to ask, so I block everything until proven otherwise. I value privacy & my time and will employ multiple tools to prevent intrusion and disruption...

Q-6
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
For me, this is the exact point. I can live with some advertising, though the kind @Nermal describes is an example of the kind that isn't at all appropriate for the circumstance. The problem being that we don't get a choice, and absent that, you either block everything or leave the door open for anything and everything.

But that leakage of personal data, activities, and being tracked for someone else's benefit is simply not acceptable to me, at all. Ads are one thing, but a site that seeks to monetize my simple presence without my knowledge or approval is barely better than a common pickpocket out to steal my wallet.

When website owners take a responsible attitude to personal and data privacy, I'll turn my ad blockers off. My finger isn't lingering anywhere near the button in expectation.
Education is the key, the more that know how to stop this blight the better. Anyone speaks to me on the subject I show them how to easily kill the ad's.

I'm fine with a reasonable level of ad's, however it's very far from reasonable and trackers are entirely another matter
as by design they are intrusive and ask for no permission.

Q-6
 
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BotchQue

macrumors 6502
Dec 22, 2019
440
605
I was playing one of those Wordle-style games at one point, and there was an ad for... washing machines, I think it was, with the ad animating and changing colours. I clicked the "x" on the ad, and it asked "why did you close this ad?". The most fitting option was "ad is inappropriate". I suspect that that option is designed for ads with nudity, foul language, etc. but I considered it fairly inappropriate to have a distracting ad when trying to solve a puzzle.
Back before I discovered ad blockers I'd often get "Why did you close this?" for political ads. I always selected "Already Purchased". :p
 

za9ra22

macrumors 65816
Sep 25, 2003
1,441
1,897
Education is the key, the more that know how to stop this blight the better. Anyone speaks to me on the subject I show them how to easily kill the ad's.

I'm fine with a reasonable level of ad's, however it's very far from reasonable and trackers are entirely another matter
as by design they are intrusive and ask for no permission.

Q-6
I also think it's a problem with data, because while the majority in the US and developed economies around the world have access to unmetered broadband, and lot of the world's populations have data limited access, or even still dialup. These people end up having to pay to get adverts, or have their connections swamped by the.

Sheer arrogance on the part of web owners to ignore these populations.
 

BotchQue

macrumors 6502
Dec 22, 2019
440
605
EweTube has been progressively worse about cramming in the ads over the last few months: blocking transmission of anything if they see an ad blocker, every fourth "video" is now a sponsored ad, etc.
I follow a cooking/science channel done by Adam Ragusea (reminds me of Alton Brown). Just watched his latest video, and, well, I'll just post here what I posted under his video:

Just a "tip" for Mr. Ragusea, ButcherBox, and Ewetube in general. This video is under 5 minutes long, but now Adam has been asked/forced to mention the sponsor, within the video, FOUR TIMES in under 5 minutes. This constant cramming of GIMMEE YOUR MONEEEEYYYY ads, will result in me just leaving EweTube altogether. I've already canceled Amazoid Prime for the same reason.
And a final note to ButcherBox: had their been just a mention at the beginning, OR the end of this video, I might be interested; but with your cramming your damn ads down my throat, FOUR TIMES IN FIVE MINUTES, I will never purchase anything from you.
 
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vegetassj4

macrumors 68000
Oct 16, 2014
1,717
9,378
PiHole (DNS Sinkhole) + Wireguard (PiHole DNS is available to all of my devices anywhere I can use the VPN) + Unbound (I'm my own recursive DNS)

FTW
 

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
8,948
7,111
Perth, Western Australia
It's not entirely the fault of the websites. Early on the idea that everything is "free" - free music streaming with ads, free news via Google New, etc. was implanted in peoples' heads.
Ads are "fine".

But when they actively steal/leak personally identifying information, take up more space than the actual content, flash, pop up, pop-under, etc. then I take offence.

And besides, if I'm looking for something on the internet, chances are I bought it same day or same week. There's no need to keep pushing me ads to buy the thing I already bought for 6 months.
 

Queen6

macrumors G4
EweTube has been progressively worse about cramming in the ads over the last few months: blocking transmission of anything if they see an ad blocker, every fourth "video" is now a sponsored ad, etc.
I follow a cooking/science channel done by Adam Ragusea (reminds me of Alton Brown). Just watched his latest video, and, well, I'll just post here what I posted under his video:
Best way to send the message as the inline Ad's are not easily delt with. Youtubers who overly persist with such tactics I unsubscribe and cease to watch...

Q-6
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
Ads are "fine".

But when they actively steal/leak personally identifying information, take up more space than the actual content, flash, pop up, pop-under, etc. then I take offence.

And besides, if I'm looking for something on the internet, chances are I bought it same day or same week. There's no need to keep pushing me ads to buy the thing I already bought for 6 months.
I block all ad's as I'm sick of them. The companies that push them lack any modicum of common sense by failing to act responsibly. They seem to think that by ramming as many ad's as possible into a space people will purchase more. Very much the opposite here, if that's how they treat potential customers I have zero interest in dealing with them...
1711324471856.png

Numbers just keep climbing, but IDGAF as I never see any of their nonsense as I block on multiple levels. MR is so bad that if the ad's could not be suppressed I'd just ignore the site...

Q-6
 
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Harry Haller

macrumors 6502a
Oct 31, 2023
533
1,194
Although I use adblocker myself, I find it quite funny to read this thread and noone sees the connection.
The more people that use AdBlockers, the more ads have to be shown to those that don't use AdBlockers, and that drives more people to use an AdBlocker.
Yeah, it's a real perverse chicken and egg situation spiralling out of control.
 

dmr727

macrumors G4
Dec 29, 2007
10,441
5,208
NYC
The whole model is broken. I'm not sure what needs to be done to fix it. Maybe we just need to nuke the while thing and start over.

I am willing to pay for content that I find valuable, but it seems like the data shows that I'm in the minority, and therefore we continue the slide into the internet becoming more and more worthless.
 
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