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Just doesn’t feel good

marco.org

61–70 of 315 posts

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#61
post #31

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.

One can easily take him at his word that he did not expect to be pinned to #1 on the app sales charts, because that would have been a crazy thing to expect. With that came the kind of attention that he's show drives him crazy in the past, it really is a Flappy Bird analog.

Don't adblockers already top browser extension "stores" top downloads lists?

Seems like the type of extension that is in fact very popular, rather than some niche one that only a few thousand out of millions of people would use.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#62
post #9

[deleted]

I agree with you. If the consumer doesn't enjoy a part of their experience with your product, you're gonna feel the effects of that whether or not a sympathetic developer helps them out or not.

To me this feels the same as big companies bullying small content producers with DMCA requests. Since these small ad-monetized websites have someone to blame, they've browbeaten someone who only set out to help the actual consumer have a better internet experience.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#65
post #45
post #39

Here is the whole thing about ad supported sites: We are worth a lot less than you think, and also overall an individuals monthly worth in advertisements is also small. https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ Turns out, we're worth about $6.20/mo in advertising. Lets just round this up to $10/month to not have ads but still support sites we visit. If content providers aren't working on an alternative like the above, I…

So I can go to a store, I don't like how they make money, I'll just take away whatever I want for free? If you don't like how they make money, do not patronize them.

If it's not harming them, they let me take it and it's not illegal then your comparison is a non-sequitur.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#66

This series of tweets from Anil Dash might give some insight into why Marco decided to pull Peace. Basically while the big publishers of content can adapt to ads being blocked and create native ads or sell "featured content", small publishers like blogs dont have the time to work on that and rely on third-party ad tech like Google AdSense for monetization. Worth a read: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/64456033636…

It is my honest belief that small, valuable sites can finance themselves through their communities. If they can't, then maybe they not worth running.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#67
post #20

Lots of people here trying to infer motives. Why not just believe what he says? He's a guy who has enough money, wants to do what he loves, and doesn't enjoy controversy. He's hacker enough to want to muck about with how to make a blocker, but it's not his joy. Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.

and doesn't enjoy controversy

So he went all in on something that was already hugely controversial (for weeks regarding iOS, and for years on other platforms). That adblockers would be controversial was blatantly obvious to any of this Earth, and should not be a surprise to anyone.

The world didn't need Marco to get in the ad blocking business. Yet he did in a big way, with a big partnership, and put a big amount of his namespace and reputation behind it.

People infer motives because the notion that this all came as some big surprise rings hollow.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#68
post #39

Here is the whole thing about ad supported sites: We are worth a lot less than you think, and also overall an individuals monthly worth in advertisements is also small. https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ Turns out, we're worth about $6.20/mo in advertising. Lets just round this up to $10/month to not have ads but still support sites we visit. If content providers aren't working on an alternative like the above, I…

An excerpt from the intro on that landing page of that project or intiative

"It is a movement to create an ad-free Web"

I find this view to be unlikely to materialize. We're in a consumerist-led capitalist economy and advertising is an integral part of it and the web as communications medium is one of its important assets.

This project will fail before it even starts due to the unrealistic end goal advertised - pun intended - on the page.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#69
> I’m sorry to all of my fans and customers who bought this on my name, expecting it to be supported for longer than two days.

Well, that was me. Funnily enough I haven't had a good experience with Overcast either (vs. Pocket Casts), so I think next time Marco releases a product I'll be a lot more skeptical. It's an awkward position too: I know I should request a refund since the app will become progressively less useful as its blocklist becomes out of date, but I would've liked to keep using it until then.

As for the alternatives, I chose to support Peace instead of Purify because the latter has seems to be involved with some mild controversy [1], in addition previous controversy the developer was involved with previously over uBlock [2]. I honestly have no idea if this is innocent misunderstanding or a genuine attempt to mislead on the developer's part (because wording on the uBlock website does seem to have been clarified now), but it was enough to give me pause. So I guess this just leaves Crystal as the main alternative at the moment?

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3leyux/say_purify_ge... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ub...

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#70

Sounds like marco chose a lump payment model instead (from the advertisers themselves). Speculation of course, but I wouldn't pull something I worked hard on in just a couple of days, especially if it was succeeding and earning a ton of money.

It doesn't "sound" like anything of the sort to me. Take off the tin-foil hat.
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