Good. I don't want to contribute to your analytics. I don't want ads. I just want to browse the web without being tracked. I don't care if that means you can't pay for your site, other sites will spring up that can without annoying users with ads and without tracking them.
The "other site" in the area I'm operating in is Google. So the situation is more like "other sites will continue to dominate by cross-subsidising from their core business, namely annoying users with ads and tracking them".
No, he wants free content without any convenience to him. He doesn't care about the so-called bigger picture, just the instant gratification he's been entitled to.
This isn't true, I'm perfectly willing to pay for content. I just don't want ads and I don't want to be tracked. Thanks to browser extensions I don't have to no matter how much that hurts your feelings. You say I'm entitled but it's actually you who isn't entitled to control how the software works on my computer.
I'm perfectly willing to support business models that aren't terrible. Perhaps you might also consider users not wanting to install rootkits, spyware and adware to support content entitled? It's the same, it's a shitty experience people don't want.
OK, I'll answer this one. No software I own installs adware/spyware that I then uninstall or circumvent. This includes "free" commercial stuff like Chrome, Steam, the Kindle App, and Spotify. And then stuff I purchase licenses for, including Transmit, Sublime Text, Lightroom. The free consumer software that I do use, KeepassX and Handbrake, don't currently install adware/spyware. If they did, I wouldn't use them.
So no, I'm not being a hypocrite in the same way as the GP is being, unless he has restricted his consumption of Internet content to Wikipedia and pastebin
We show an ask for donations in place of the ads for users who block our ads (Simple, subtle, using the same colors and fonts as the rest of the site so it isn't distracting). A handful of users do donate. The vast majority do not. Interestingly, the users who donate are also the ones most likely to whitelist our site.
Most (but not all) users today feel entitled to content, games, music, etc for free and get mad when it isn't granted to them and turn up their noses at things like ads that support the content for the price they're willing to pay (free).
Sounds like you've come up with a nice comfortable rationalization for creating bad experiences for your users. How convenient for you. You don't seem to think very highly of your site's visitors.
> Most (but not all) users today feel entitled to content, games, music, etc for free and get mad when it isn't granted to them and turn up their noses at things like ads that support the content for the price they're willing to pay (free).
This is an obvious generalization and an opinion you have. People who block ads do so because ads have been and continue to be annoying, exploitive, invasive and vectors for viruses. I am not sorry I block them, and you're not going to make me feel bad for making decisions about what my computer does or doesn't do.
Don't confuse the desire to not see ads with a feeling of entitlement. I fully support a website operator's right to detect that I am blocking ads and hide the content, or to make unblockable ads. I don't feel entitled to their resources. But if they do show content I'm interested in, I'll consume it. It's not at all a feeling of entitlement.
Watching an ad is paying a price. If it's possible to get something for free without breaking the law and without other tangible negative consequences for yourself, why would you pay a price? Altruism, right? So watching ads is my altruistic duty now?
The respondents have a solid point. You can't criticize them blocking ads, if they're willing to see degrading service because of it. What we lack that would be ideal is full transparency from the site's point of view to know which user is blocking ads and, if they choose so, prevent that user from viewing any content. It should be illegal to 'fake' watching ads just to get the content.
This imbalance is indeed a big problem imo: essentially any scheme from the site is permitted to be circumvented without giving them knowledge: this can create an unhealthy market dynamics where ads get more aggressive (to generate more revenue per user), every user installs ad blocking software (note that once installed, most users won't ever uninstall ad blockers), and websites are eventually forced to chose from only two models: mediocre service (low operational costs) or paywall.
I personally would gladly accept targeted minimalist ads, which I would prefer to having to pay to access most sites. Nowadays I use an ad blocker though since some ads are far too intrusive for my liking.
I think the whole internet industry needs urgently to discuss mechanisms for this problem though.
OK, I'll bite. So what kind of Internet content have you paid for? And how do you pay for it without being tracked? Because you know, credit cards payments transmit your personal information. Or have you successfully transitioned to a Bitcoin-only currency lifestyle?
A recurring monthly payment doesn't track my activity does it. It just tracks that I've paid for something. Many sites offer PayPal so there's no personal information conveyed at all.
I pay for a lot of Twitch subs. I am currently subbed to like 7 channels. I've also payed for the NYTimes and Washington Post through Amazon's payment system. I've paid for Ars Technica. I pay for Pandora. I pay for Reddit gold. I also buy skins and mounts in free to play games like Heroes of the Storm and TF2.
The sad truth is that adblockers are not a good thing. The value exchange with online content is free access for ads. Adblockers are just incredibly simple to install and use which allows people to skirt this agreement without issue, however just because something is easy doesn't make it "right".
It's always interesting when people argue about privacy without really knowing what ad networks store (which is just a random ID number and some interest categories) vs what they willing give up to social networks. Not to mention that payments are not more private, in fact payments = credit cards = everything including address, birthday, purchase history etc all tied to a real identity. Browsing via ads is far more private than browsing via paid access.
I agree with that as ads support the content rich internet we all know and love
However ads have become just too much annoying with all the pop left and right and other shady tactics to steal your eyeballs or get you to dow load a virus
It is time user started pushing back, since content owners are currently little to no incentive to push back to ads provider for getting high quality ads.
Adblocking puts the right incentive where its due. They should however play nice to web site owners. If the content owner wants not show content unless an ad is displayed, the ad blocker shouldn't circumvent that
They aren't gonna fixing ads provider getting too far by getting to far on the opposite direction. That will just put more content behind paywalls in the long run.
I think the users always had the same choice, don't visit sites where you don't like the experience. Sure adblockers are finally pushing for better sites and ads but the blunt force approach of just blocking all ad scripts is actually causing more harm then good.
Nowadays, hosting is so cheap that independent blogging is not really at risk, everyone can publish anything anytime. The risk is really with top and mid-tier publishers who produce content for money. These guys will be squeezed and what we're headed towards is both paywalls everywhere and a walled-garden approach where Facebook or other big central apps/sites will control access to everything else. Not sure either is a great option for the future.
Note: Yes micropayments/universal "internet" subscriptions might work but this is a far greater problem than people make it out to be. Any company attempting to do this will need massive scale, perfect tracking (again privacy issues here), secure access to billing and identity and ease of use for users. They will possibly help from either ISPs or some other infrastructure layer to actually make this work and even Google is having trouble with their 2nd try at a micropayments model in their new Contributor program. It's just not an easy thing to solve, definitely not as easy as just putting up a few ads and making the content free.
Some of the ad-block using crowd say that this is not about getting the content and avoiding the ads - it's just about avoiding the ads. I've started asking people who use an ad-blocker if there are any sites they no longer visit.
piwik is essentially a self-hosted GA. So it uses JS (like GA) but tracks to a DB on your own server so the data on your visit remains private between you and the site-owner (rather than also being provided to a third-party like Google)
Good. I don't want to contribute to your analytics. I don't want ads. I just want to browse the web without being tracked. I don't care if that means you can't pay for your site, other sites will spring up that can without annoying users with ads and without tracking them.