I've used an ad blocker for so long, I'd forgotten the web has got so terrible.
Any time I have to use the Internet without an ad blocker it's truly shocking how absolutely lousy everything is with ads
“Your frustration is the product”
31–40 of 352 posts
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#32Apart from adblock (technically ublock), I can encourage reading mode. Even F9 on Edge is pretty good at figuring out what you really want to see/read. It sometimes also bypasses paywalls by accident.
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#33"I went to the New York Times to glimpse at four headlines and was greeted with 422 network requests and 49 megabytes of data." Not really the point of the article, but almost all major news sites are significantly better if you block javascript. You sometimes lose pictures and just get text, but often the pictures are irrelevant anyhow. (a story about a world leader, and some public / stock photo is used and is not…
For "lyric sites" read "ad sites that use lyrics to attract an audience". That's where we are today.
People want lyrics. They don't want to pay for them, but they want someone to make the lyrics available for them, for free, on the Internet, forever. And they feel they are entitled to this without ads for some reason. That's where we are today.
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#34Why bother with ad blockers? These organizations don't want you reading their articles, so take the hint.
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The dialog around ads on HN is extremely low quality This is kind of an ironic comment given that this whole discussion is about visiting the sites as a paying subscriber . I pay for the NYT. If I visit without adblockers, the site is absolutely stuffed with obnoxious amounts of advertising. I mean, of course I use adblockers normally, and it's basically a requirement no matter how much you're willing to pay for eve…
> It's like buy a $2000 TV and discovering ads on the homescreen, ContentID to sell your viewing habits, etc. Have you bought a TV recently? This is exactly what is happening already. I had to pi-hole my entire network to get rid of the ads in my "switch source" menu on my Samsung TV that did not have ads when I bought it and for the first 3 years after that .
I only hooked up my Samsung TV to the internet to install one update when I first acquired it, then kept it disconnected. Thanks for the tip--I'll make sure to keep it offline forever now!
Can you roll back to an older firmware?
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#36Reminds me of "Website obesity crisis"
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYpl0QVCr6U
- https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
Some say that you should not use ad blocker, because that kills ad revenue, but I did not forced anybody to rely with their lives on ad revenue. Many of things were 'free' because we were all just using ad blocks, and then it all became commodified, simplified, so simpletons without ad blocks became a thing. Now they shame people for using ad blocks, even though it stops spreading malware and viruses.
I plan to use ad block, and use as many extensions that protect me. If there is some form of goods, be it streaming movies, audio, books I will happily pay for it. I will not accept a web with ads. I prefer touch grass. There is a clear line for me.
Also there is no line ad publisher will not cross. The goal posts are shifted, so you will never satisfy shareholder greed. The only pushback is trough ads and probably sometimes piracy. Not that I advocate it, but in reality if companies push too hard, there are consequences.
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#37Here is the most frustrating part: Publishers could create efficient fast-loading web pages if they prioritized it (and a rare few do) but its just not a priority for most even though its in their best interest. You can have ads loading on a web page, even with header bidders, if you structure it correctly. In fact you can implement an ad solution that allows for fast loading pages and better optimize your ad revenue…
This is very cool, nicely done.
One note: the Property link, that links to the actual news source, is broken.
Also, the test link you're using for Nautilus (the top scoring site) is 404 (https://nautil.us/issue/48/chaos/the-multiverse-as-muse)
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#38Let's not forget who developed the tooling, platforms, frameworks, libraries and packages and so on that these news companies use.
Nor the development practices that are hoisted as "the way to do things now" that people frantically race to adopt so they are not pushed out of the industry and a fruitful career as "obsolete".
Nor the technology companies that thought they served as a suitable replacement for news and advertising and community boards and used their massive investments to undercut the ability of traditional news outlets to survive, nevermind upstarts to have any hope of competing.
And the haranguing continues as if it was the design of these organizations in the first place.
There's no love lost for the media companies owned by billionaires, but maybe it should be more clear in these discussions exactly who started this particular mess.
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#39I was surprised at the claim that The Guardian leaves very little room for the article. Sure enough, I loaded it up in a private window with adblocks disabled and the above the fold was very obnoxious. Which is very surprising to me. I only read The Guardian within the Tor browser, and when the website is loaded over their onion urls I do not see the same large obnoxious ads. A rare Tor win? Maybe adnetworks block To…
Maybe someone with some brain on The Guardian realized if you're browsing through Tor, no way you're going to create a login and link your browsing to a name/email address...
That makes it sound like no one of The Guardian has a brain, it's not the intention, it's my most trusted news source, but maybe someone on the IT department thought a little bit further.
Re: “Your frustration is the product”
#40Newspapers have an extremely expensive product. They have to pay for it somehow! You can’t give away an expensive product for free forever! No one on the internet likes paying for access to content. After 35 years we have not found a way to monetize except ad tech. Is that so hard to understand? Every time someone links an article on this website from an expensive print publication, there is immediately a link in the…
after 30 years of waiting for standard micropayments, I have stopped wondering if it's solvable. I perfectly believe we could have had it working 20 years ago but there's a reason someone doesn't desire it to be. i also dont know how economics work so maybe paying 2/3 of a cent for a page view is not helpful. Maybe that's why it doesnt work. Maybe I'm in the 1% of people who would pay for ad-free content on a non-sub…
Al a carte content via a good standardized micro payment option sounds wonderful. Not sure if we as a society would pull it off well, but I can dream.
Define micropayments, but we kind of do it with television and movies if you rent from something like Apple, Sony, or Amazon. Would love if that model could apply to the written word as well.