So there are very few things I would be less likely to read than "47 Shocking New Ways To Please Your Man In Bed", but on an intellectual level I understand that that formula has made Cosmo more money than I will ever see in my lifetime.
You are welcome to your preference, of course, but the relevant question for my client is "Does Tuesdays and people like him control a lot of links? Would he link to the article in the absence of this widget? Is he going to refrain from linking to the article now? Will the aggregate number of links we lose offset the massive gain we are expecting to get [and are capable of measuring] from less-opinionated users?"
If the answer to any one of those questions is "no", your preferences are not economically relevant to my client. (Similarly, in the context of doing software trials with a similar mechanism, I am going to go out on a limb and say the intersection of "hates Javascript tomfoolery like this" and "pays money for software" is so low that I am incapable of devising a system precise enough to measure it.)
They're one of the factors finally pushing me towards just a default-block policy (the other factor is sites that pop something up when you mouseover a link). I've tried really hard to start with a blank adblock list and individually block sites that have particularly egregious stuff, but the whack-a-mole is getting ridiculous. Haven't quite given in yet, but if I don't reach a fixed point soon where I can stop adding 5 new things a day, I'm just going to subscribe to a blocklist.
I wonder how hard it'd be, alternately, to write a heuristic to block absolutely-positioned top/bottom bars. May play around with that a bit.
You are welcome to your preference, of course, but the relevant question for my client is "Does Tuesdays and people like him control a lot of links? Would he link to the article in the absence of this widget? Is he going to refrain from linking to the article now? Will the aggregate number of links we lose offset the massive gain we are expecting to get [and are capable of measuring] from less-opinionated users?"
If the answer to any one of those questions is "no", your preferences are not economically relevant to my client. (Similarly, in the context of doing software trials with a similar mechanism, I am going to go out on a limb and say the intersection of "hates Javascript tomfoolery like this" and "pays money for software" is so low that I am incapable of devising a system precise enough to measure it.)