11–20 of 315 posts
I see things as he does, the ads are terrible, but it's silly to try to pretend like ad-blockers are an unalloyed good. This situation will continue to worsen, and as I see it, will hasten the popularity of Facebook's new instant-article feature and similar.
Stopping this because it "feels wrong" is odd. Donate the profits to a charity. At the absurd extreme, If you honestly feel adblocking is a moral problem, donate the profits to an anti-adblocking lobby. Throwing away your money is throwing away your leverage.
Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…
Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…
I wonder why he made this decision after launching. The consequences and economics of ad-blocking are nothing new or surprising, and I'm sure he knew this while developing the app. Sounds like he was threatened or blackmailed.
Meh, who knows, but tossing the word "blackmailed" in there is unnecessarily sensationalist, imo. All sorts of things can be "known" in the abstract, and still feel far more intense when experienced in reality.
Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…
Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…
Instapaper is owned by Instapaper Holdings (Betaworks), not Marco. (In addition to starting Instapaper, Marco also started a publication called The Magazine, which he sold and is now shuttered.)
I wonder why he made this decision after launching. The consequences and economics of ad-blocking are nothing new or surprising, and I'm sure he knew this while developing the app. Sounds like he was threatened or blackmailed.
It's one thing to know you're hurting somebody's livelihood in the abstract, it's another to have them specifically call you out over it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghosterys model Doubtful that's the case. If you read his post, he recommends Ghostery several times. It just sounds like he ultimately didn't feel comfortable about making money off something that takes money out of other peopl…
Recommending them means nothing at all. That is practically the status quo when breaking up with another business, employee or whatever when it is done publicly. (and this obviously had to be public)
Why not take his statement at face value? He's personally reliant on ad income from his site, as are several of his friends, so it makes sense that profiting off an ad blocker makes him uncomfortable. No conspiracy needed.
(For background, see: http://www.marco.org/2015/09/17/why-peace-blocks-deck-ads)
Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.