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LA Times and ads

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Re: LA Times and ads

#131

Post by kristianc »

artursapek wrote: post #96
zkms wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst type of ad on newspaper sites are the disgusting "chumboxes" (by scumsuckers like "taboola" or "outbrain") that orbit at the bottom of pages and serve up images meant to be as simultaneously repulsive and fascinating as possible: https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b... As long as these pages have ads that display utterly gross images (if you doubt me, click the above link) that make…

> Chumbox Had no idea there was a name for this shit! But of course there is. It's really sad that the most rotten apples have spoiled it for everybody. I was thinking recently about trying to set up a passive income website that makes money on Adsense, but got discouraged when I remembered that Adblockers are a thing.

You're decrying the amount of crap on the internet and then saying that it impedes your ability to set up a 'passive income' site whose sole purpose is to make money through Adsense?

Re: LA Times and ads

#132

Post by jedberg »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #22

I develop software used by newspapers. This is a problem with the whole industry. It's amazing how much crap they load. These sites all use a third party "tag manager" (Google Tag Manager, Tealium, Piwik etc.) to manage the scripts they load: ads, analytics, trackers etc. The people who use the tag manager typically aren't techies, so they don't understand that adding another tag will cause the page to slow down. Typ…

> who knows why they have multiple overlapping ones.

Different ad networks use different provider's numbers to determine how much to charge for ads based on which traffic tier you're in. If you don't use them all, then you can't sell on that network, or you get a really bad CPM. And none of them seem to trust Google's numbers except Google, even though those are far more accurate than any other provider.

Re: LA Times and ads

#133

Post by emmelaich »

zkms wrote: post #91
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be in an NSFW ad bubble. I only see tame clickbait from the Taboola links.

> You must be in an NSFW ad bubble. No, i get the trypophobia-triggering (DON'T GOOGLE THAT WORD) chumbox images when browsing in incognito mode, without pre-existing cookies or anything else. This has nothing to do with my ad bubble, https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b... has mentioned that the chumboxes very often carry those images. Also i'm not the only one, there's lots of other people w…

That makes sense; you'll get the cheapest, crappiest ads, when the prospective revenue is lowest (i.e. no other related tracking data)

Re: LA Times and ads

#134

Post by tedunangst »

anigbrowl wrote: post #99

They are also the most aggressive ad shoveling website I have ever seen. Their ad blocker blocker and paywall works, preventing me from reading articles. It keeps working even when I have my ad blocker turned off. Obviously I must have some anti-tracking extension still enabled that it dislikes, but I'm not willing to spend that much time troubleshooting my browser. It's baffling to me, because the LAT is one newspap…

I would discourage you from getting a subscription for other reasons, but will note that subscribers don't get grief about ad blockers.

Re: LA Times and ads

#135

Post by leoh »

I've noticed that if you are running an ad-blocker and disable JavaScript (i.e. from the Chrome debugger), you can view the page just fine.

Re: LA Times and ads

#136

Post by martinpw »

padseeker wrote: post #121
lobster_johnson wrote: post #22

I develop software used by newspapers. This is a problem with the whole industry. It's amazing how much crap they load. These sites all use a third party "tag manager" (Google Tag Manager, Tealium, Piwik etc.) to manage the scripts they load: ads, analytics, trackers etc. The people who use the tag manager typically aren't techies, so they don't understand that adding another tag will cause the page to slow down. Typ…

I work in IT for TRONC (parent company of LA Times), and can vouch for this. Some of the ad scripts are horrendously bad. Open firebug or chrome dev tools and load the page, watch all those errors pour in. We pay very close attention to our own code, but all those js bugs that are happening are related to external ad networks with terrible javascript. We have something in the neighborhood of 30+ ad partners. Some of…

The LA Times popup says: "To read today's stories, please turn off your ad blocker or subscribe". That "or" implies a subscription should allow you to browse ad-free. Is that intended to be true?

I actually purchased a subscription because I do want to support the paper but not deal with the nightmarish ads that make the site basically unusable. However after logging in, the site immediately demands that I disable blocking third party cookies. I've been in touch with the subscription department without luck, so at this point I am looking to cancel my subscription. Pity - I really wanted to support the paper, but they make it basically impossible to do so.

Re: LA Times and ads

#137

Post by d-sc »

danbruc wrote: post #120
anigbrowl wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots would if it weren't so inconvenient. I read articles from maybe 100 different news sources in a typical month but realistically I don't want 100 newspaper and magazine subscriptions, or 100 different subscription offers or website accounts. Why isn't there something like a Netflix for News that just gives me news free of visual cruft and takes care of distributing the revenue from what I read in approximately ac…

Lots would if it weren't so inconvenient. I am not really sure about that. About 10 % of all Internet users are currently using an ad blocker. So 90 % are okay with ads or don't care or whatever. Further I would estimate that users would have to pay between $5 and $10 per month to pay for the content they consume to provide an income for sites comparable to that of ads. Maybe 1 % of the ad blocker users - number pull…

That would be a ~$30 million a year business in the United States alone which would be worthwhile if it was creating revenue out of previously non paying Adblock users.

Numbers: Population: 300,000,00 million Percent internet users: 84%

Re: LA Times and ads

#138

Post by pfranz »

anigbrowl wrote: post #108
danbruc wrote: post #90

But how many users would actually be willing to pay for the content they consume in order to get rid of ads and tracking and excessive data volume consumption? And how much would they be willing to pay? It seems like they would have to be willing to pay at least an amount comparable to the average ad revenue per user and page view, whatever that actually is. Just blocking ads is certainly justifiable in the current s…

Lots would if it weren't so inconvenient. I read articles from maybe 100 different news sources in a typical month but realistically I don't want 100 newspaper and magazine subscriptions, or 100 different subscription offers or website accounts. Why isn't there something like a Netflix for News that just gives me news free of visual cruft and takes care of distributing the revenue from what I read in approximately ac…

I saw https://blendle.com mentioned on here a few weeks ago. I haven't tried them, but it sounds like what you're looking for.

Re: LA Times and ads

#139

Post by pdimitar »

padseeker wrote: post #121
lobster_johnson wrote: post #22

I develop software used by newspapers. This is a problem with the whole industry. It's amazing how much crap they load. These sites all use a third party "tag manager" (Google Tag Manager, Tealium, Piwik etc.) to manage the scripts they load: ads, analytics, trackers etc. The people who use the tag manager typically aren't techies, so they don't understand that adding another tag will cause the page to slow down. Typ…

I work in IT for TRONC (parent company of LA Times), and can vouch for this. Some of the ad scripts are horrendously bad. Open firebug or chrome dev tools and load the page, watch all those errors pour in. We pay very close attention to our own code, but all those js bugs that are happening are related to external ad networks with terrible javascript. We have something in the neighborhood of 30+ ad partners. Some of…

I am very grateful that you're honest and open. I'd give you a respectful bow in person on that basis alone.

That being said, I believe the media companies should start accepting the inevitable fact that people don't care about their financial struggles or hardships in finding ways to monetize content. As long as the said content is visibly free (even if it comes with strings attached as invisible tracking) then the people will continue to believe it's free and the more technical users like myself will go the extra mile to actively impede your tracking. You can't escape from that.

I would actually pay for good journalism. But as a possible consumer of the theoretical good journalism, I can't trust anyone. Every month there are news about very shady ads or nasty ransomware snuck through ad networks. How can I trust anyone who is after making money in the industry?

Both the ad and publisher industry have repeteadly shown their profits are their most important priority, not the readers safety. This is never gonna change, they must make money.

I can understand their motives but I have zero sympathy for them due to the methods they employ.

If they are smart business people, they have to sit and actively think of new and non-intrusive ways to monetize content, like right now. The current publishing and monetization models golden days are long behind them, all of the companies are fighting over scraps (obviously I can't prove this but I believe it's a legit theory, judging by the desperate methods) and the bean-counters should stop trying to beat this game and rather look for a new game.

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