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Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

lichess.org

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Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#141

Post by freitasm »

dietr1ch wrote: post #128
SeanAnderson wrote: post #6

Lichess is so fucking cool. It's easily one of my top inspirations for building a company "right." My favorite part of Lichess is their open financials. Check it out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSk... If you want to know the exact amount to donate to offset your gameplay - you can actually do that.

I love this part. In contrast, I barely watch Youtube, so getting premium doesn't make sense and I know that everytime I get an ad Google is getting less money than what I'd need to bid to skip the ad. I'd like to be able to have a money pool to outbid ads that would be shown to me and get a decent experience instead.

Yet, I run a forum with a subscription option to remove ads. About 35% of our traffic blocks ads but we only have a hundred or so subscribers out of 150,000 unique visitors a month with a 40% return visitor rate.

People use lots of arguments on why to block ads and not subscribe at the same time.

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#142

Post by timeagain »

Tenoke wrote: post #126
jstummbillig wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The special thing about Lichess is not that it's good and open source, but that it actually pays an okay-ish salary to work on fulltime, while upholding all those lofty goals. It's an actual job. Without the whole thing being paid for by FAANG.

>but that it actually pays an okay/ish salary to work on fulltime, while upholding all those lofty goals. He pays himself a fairly low salary for the work he is putting in.

Not really for you to decide, right? How much of your wage would you cede to not have any management? People answer that question differently.

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#144

Post by Mystery-Machine »

wirrbel wrote: post #29
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of fascinating that their biggest cost is site moderation! This seems... odd for a site whose main mechanic really isn't social networking.

I play regularly on lichess. I got insulted a couple of times in the game chat. Looking at the scale of lichess, I am sure it adds up.

I've never ever looked at the chat. And knowing that it costs money, and quite a lot, to moderate that, I'll never report anyone. It's just vanity. I don't care what you write to me. I just beat you in the game. Just cry it out. There you go.

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#145

Post by throw_pm23 »

Karunamon wrote: post #49
spinningslate wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is what enables the French government to fund companies like lichess in the first place. >Their resources would go further if they left. So, what, say "thanks for the funding that got us started, we're off to fill our pockets somewhere else now"?

… Absolutely yes? Governments are amoral entities, and this particular relationship is based entirely on power (pay us or else), not mutual respect or any of the other things that characterize human social relationships. If we must anthropomorphize them anyways, then they have paid back in taxes many times more than they were given to start. Any such "implicit" debt was long since paid, so they could move with a clea…

I don't even dare ask what your opinion would be of concepts as nation or homeland.

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#146

Post by ddalex »

freitasm wrote: post #141
dietr1ch wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this part. In contrast, I barely watch Youtube, so getting premium doesn't make sense and I know that everytime I get an ad Google is getting less money than what I'd need to bid to skip the ad. I'd like to be able to have a money pool to outbid ads that would be shown to me and get a decent experience instead.

Yet, I run a forum with a subscription option to remove ads. About 35% of our traffic blocks ads but we only have a hundred or so subscribers out of 150,000 unique visitors a month with a 40% return visitor rate. People use lots of arguments on why to block ads and not subscribe at the same time.

Why do you permit ad blocking and no subscription ?

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#147

Post by Mystery-Machine »

rndmwlk wrote: post #93
paulryanrogers wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visiting sites consume resources. If you walk into a store and take a gift card you're still consuming resources meant to be paid for, even if they're mostly digital resources. Regardless of the car or shoes you used to do it. I don't welcome a world of paid products that also include ads. Yet ads do make some paid products cheaper, like say a Kindle or a TV. Folks blocking ads from a premium product probably have a…

I think a more fitting analogy would be walking into a store to sit down and cool off with no intent of buying anything. You are "taking" passive resources (air conditioning, space, potentially employee attention). Would you consider that to be unethical? Personally, I don't believe ad blocking is unethical because I don't believe the ways in which advertisers collect and sell their data is ethical.

Our data* It's not their

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#148

Post by freitasm »

ddalex wrote: post #146
freitasm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, I run a forum with a subscription option to remove ads. About 35% of our traffic blocks ads but we only have a hundred or so subscribers out of 150,000 unique visitors a month with a 40% return visitor rate. People use lots of arguments on why to block ads and not subscribe at the same time.

Why do you permit ad blocking and no subscription ?

We tried asking people to whitelist th site a couple of times but it is not something (the asking) that people like.

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#149

Post by Etheryte »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #53
Etheryte wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stance is absurd. It's your device, you choose what content you want to consume on it. Do you imagine a world where you buy a monitor and once every hour it shows you fullscreen ads from the device manufacturer without your consent? Maybe you do, but for everyone else that's a dystopia.

Visiting sites consume resources. If you walk into a store and take a gift card you're still consuming resources meant to be paid for, even if they're mostly digital resources. Regardless of the car or shoes you used to do it. I don't welcome a world of paid products that also include ads. Yet ads do make some paid products cheaper, like say a Kindle or a TV. Folks blocking ads from a premium product probably have a…

This is misguided. Just like visiting a site consumes resources on their server, visiting a site consumes resources on my system, in fact, if I don't block ads it consumes even more resources. In many cases I would argue that fetching and rendering the whole flashing shebang of ad garbage some sites ship these days consumes considerably more resources than simply serving the files on a server.

Re: Lichess: Block Ads and Trackers

#150

Post by JamesBarney »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #6

Lichess is so fucking cool. It's easily one of my top inspirations for building a company "right." My favorite part of Lichess is their open financials. Check it out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Si3PMUJGR9KrpE5lngSk... If you want to know the exact amount to donate to offset your gameplay - you can actually do that.

The amount they spend on server costs should be an eye opener to most enterprises who are spending 10x more and have 100x fewer users.
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