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Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

forum.palemoon.org

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Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#211

Post by JosephLark »

jedberg wrote: post #124

I hear a lot of people in here saying, "Yay for AdNauseum, they are fixing the broken ad system! If sites start charging instead of ads, I'll totally pay!" Let me add a little perspective. A long time ago at reddit we launched reddit gold. At the time, one of the biggest benefits was that if you had gold you could turn off ads. This was in direct response to people saying, "I would rather pay you then use adblock". Y…

My feelings about reddit gold:

I subscribed to reddit gold for a year. Removal of ads wasn't a big benefit to me since, as you know, I could achieve the same with or without reddit gold with ad-blocking. There was obviously no point in me whitelisting reddit and then toggling the ads off in the settings. I was, however, happy to be supporting reddit.

However, in the end I've never purchased reddit gold again. I have been gilded a few times. I did whitelist reddit in my blocker again.

The reason for this was because I didn't see reddit improving much. No visible features were being launched (gold gated or general) that improved my experience, so it was hard to see what I was supporting. So I stopped.

On lots of others sites, it's clear that a subscription is for the content. Reddit is just the platform, though. In that case, gold was touted as additional features, some of which would be eventually be released for every user. I'm not sure how many features that happened for, but I can only recall hearing about one.

To be fair, this was years ago. However, nothing since has tipped me towards supporting reddit again and I don't think I'm likely to hop back onto gold anytime soon. Only recently has reddit started to appear to launch some stuff that would have kept me supporting reddit through gold. I'm sure I've been missing things as announcements these days seem to be spread out across many different subreddits that rarely hit the front page.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#212

Post by [deleted] »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #206
smichel17 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally we'd find other ways to bankroll websites. Obligatory snowdrift.coop plug here (best intro, though with outdated visuals, remains https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/intro )

Ideally. But everything has failed so far except donation-style things for a handful of specific niches.

[deleted]

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#213

Post by kuschku »

dvdhnt wrote: post #189
kuschku wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how much ad money does each user actually bring you? 5€ doesn’t seem like a realistic price. According to https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/6pxyvy/traffic_pag... , about half of your users are mobile users of the official app, which does not support ad blocking, so at least half of your entire userbase either pays for gold, or has ads. Official statistics you’ve published put reddit at a reach of 6% of US…

> Official statistics you’ve published put reddit at a reach of 6% of US internet users, which would be over 234 million users. The population of the U.S. is about 320 million, including children and non internet users, so how can 6% of US internet users equate to over 234 million users?

> The population of the U.S. is about 320 million, including children and non internet users, so how can 6% of US internet users equate to over 234 million users?

Reddit operates in many countries, but the data Reddit published on their blog a few months ago named both of these numbers. Which is... interesting.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#214

Post by dingo_bat »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #207
dingo_bat wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly my purpose. I want all ad supported businesses to die.

Stop visiting sites that use ads you don't like. "Vote with your feet"

Why should I do what you tell me? I have other options too, and I can do those too. One of them is ad nauseum.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#215

Post by pryelluw »

jedberg wrote: post #164
pryelluw wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. To me it simply shows that removing ads is not a big enough benefit make people pay. Which makes sense because people are now used to ads. They will consume the content either way.

But we're talking about people who install a program that purposely defrauds advertisers.

Im not disagreeing with you. All I'm saying is that the benefit you offer by removing ads as a feature is not big enough to get them to pay.

Yes, they do it on purpose. Have you researched why? Is this a symptom and not the problem itself?

:)

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#216

Post by junkculture »

jedberg wrote: post #124

I hear a lot of people in here saying, "Yay for AdNauseum, they are fixing the broken ad system! If sites start charging instead of ads, I'll totally pay!" Let me add a little perspective. A long time ago at reddit we launched reddit gold. At the time, one of the biggest benefits was that if you had gold you could turn off ads. This was in direct response to people saying, "I would rather pay you then use adblock". Y…

I now log into reddit very rarely and only to correct errors in comments where I am actually somewhat experienced.

I've been gilded more than a few times and I've never come to know until the expiry notice shows up.

So it's actually hard to tell what the reddit gold buys one, apart from virtue signalling that one is a "supporter."

Now if the gold bought me to ability to turn off all comments, see what the mods have censored off the various subs, and actually extract some value off the site, I'd pay up in a flash.

But as it stands, reddit has lost any credibility that it ever had, and logging in that toxic mess provides no value to me and too much value to reddit.

In short, not a site worth supporting in any shape or form.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#217

Post by emerged »

Paul_S wrote: post #118

Never heard of adnauseam before, the developers deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. The argument saying that it damages the publishers and not the ad networks is pure nonsense. By damaging the publisher's ability to make money of ads you also damage the ad network - how is this not clear? ALL and I mean all advertisers can die a slow agonising death as far as I care. They are adding nothing of value to the civilisation. And…

The ad industry stops at nothing to force themselves in front of our face and ears. The notion that a completely legal counterattack is somehow unethical is profoundly absurd.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#218

Post by junkculture »

vectorpush wrote: post #176
BastardGas wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use of AdNauseum is more of a "fuck you" to companies like reddit or google who have turned the internet from a forum for free expression to a tool for censorship and social control.

This makes no sense. Have you ever used a web forum before reddit? People get banned all the time for arbitrary reasons on forums all over the web, why should reddit be any different? "The internet" has not been turned into anything, it remains the same as it has always been, a place where communities of varying interests can interact at their own discretion, a freedom which includes the prerogative to exclude anythi…

I've been on BBSes and various forums since 1987.

Reddit is the only site where I've been banned off a single sub. And this was to correct an error referencing my own work and expertise.

As far as I can tell, they've gone overboard on their censoring, marketing and propaganda.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#219

Post by ebcode »

etplayer wrote: post #139
ebcode wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in a high school physical education class, if one member of our class wasn't ready (changed into p.e. clothes and standing in a line) 5 minutes after the bell rang, then the whole class had to do ten push-ups. I remember thinking how unfair it was for the whole class to be punished for the actions of one individual. But I'm sure the P.E. teacher's response to any mention of unfairness would have been somet…

I don't; the fact that life is unfair doesn't mean we shouldn't push for better conditions, and in fact, this is the entire reason why we live so long, have worker rights, etc.

It sounds like you do agree that life is unfair, though. At least, you call it a "fact". I think it is a fact, as well, because "fairness" is an ideal that we strive towards, and ideals never exist in reality. I don't disagree with you that we should strive for better conditions.

In the case of chuckdries being financially punished by a swath of users choosing to install AdNauseam or similar plugins, I think we might agree that it isn't fair for his particular case, but it is fair in the aggregate, or more general case, due to the reprehensible behavior of "big ad networks", which created the impetus for the development of these types of plugins in the first place.

I'll admit to being in a negative mood, which is why my mind went immediately to gym class. :( I just don't see a sensible way out of this situation that will both castigate the bad actors in the advertising space, while simultaneously allowing for these small "home-grown" ad networks to escape the castigation.

We've got to find a better way of supporting websites than selling out our visitors, though. Some revenue models that worked for traditional print simply won't work for the web. I think the sooner we find that out and adapt our models, the better off we'll all be.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#220

Post by dang »

wu_tang_chris wrote: post #197
aphextron wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone arguing against AdNauseum is totally missing the point here. We, as users, could not possibly care less if your site goes out of business because you are unable to come up with another form of monetization. Something will rise up to take your place that is more user friendly. The market will find a way. I somehow strongly doubt that if the current paradigm of ad based revenue were to disappear overnight, that…

> We, as users, could not possibly care less if your site goes out of business because you are unable to come up with another form of monetization. Exactly this. The entitlement jedberg shows here, to be able to show ads on a link aggregator (of all useless things) is astonishing.

> The entitlement jedberg shows here

This crosses into personal attack and namecalling. Those things are against the HN guidelines. Would you please (re-)read them, and follow them when commenting here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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