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I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

ryansouthgate.com

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Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#251

Post by esjeon »

liampulles wrote: post #235

From conception, I've never wanted a comment section on my blog. I just put a line that in effect says "if you want to comment, you can send me an email at xyz". If you are coming to a blog post of mine that has been shared to you, my assumption is that you want to read my article, and not to be distracted by whatever performance is happening in the comment section. I am aiding you by not even putting a comment secti…

I agree. Your blog represents you, so it must be fully curated by you. Others' opinions, you can always pull them manually into your website whenever necessary in whatever method and format you prefer. There's no reason to be bothered by random strangers injecting random things onto your own persona. They can always go to other communities if they seriously want to talk about your posts.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#252

Post by justsid »

kens wrote: post #248

I encountered a similar problem with blog subscription services: I was using "follow.it", which would handle subscriptions and send out an email when I have a new article. It worked fine until follow.it went spammy a few months ago, switching to emails that were mostly objectionable junk ads. Does anyone have advice for handling blog subscriptions? I'm thinking of switching to Kit, which has a free tier that seems re…

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Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#253

Post by BizarroLand »

tcfhgj wrote: post #71
mrweasel wrote: post #63

Other than the volume, one of the issues I have with these types of ads is that you're rarely able to report them as scams. Reddit have a similar issue. You can report an ad, but you have to pick "Other", there's no: "This ad is clearly a scam". That's by design obviously, because by removing the scams, most of the ad networks are left with very little inventory. Certainly not enough to fund all the ad supported serv…

almost every ad is a scam, telling lies directly or indirectly maximizing what is within the legal bounds.

Seems like the ethical way to have ads on your site is to do it the way Costco does.

Costco has an entire section of affiliate links to manufacturers they have worked with. The people who go there get special discounts on the products purchased from those manufacturers, and the only ads you get about it are on Costco's site reminding you that this section exists.

Websites could easily add a "shop" page to their sites and screen and curate a selection of companies willing to pay an affiliate link bonus to the site when users purchase through those links.

This would help them generate income while also not enshittifying the site or experience for users.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#254

Post by jerf »

mort96 wrote: post #117
lupusreal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean and the people who buy ads for scams are the problem, but the truth is the entire industry is complicit with the scamming, and stuff like this shows it. If the ad industry were merely hapless victims of the scammers, rather than willful participants in the scamming, they'd be eager to receive reports of scams.

I feel like there are almost two completely incompatible stories being sold by ad tech people. One is that "you shouldn't use an ad blocker, reputable websites have ads from Google and other reputable companies and they wouldn't be scams or malware". The other is that any time there's a story about malware and scams on reputable websites, they say: "there are so many ads being submitted, Google is doing their best bu…

This is the motte & bailey fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

While it has gotten around the "logical fallacy community", for lack of a better term, in the last few years, it could still stand to be known by more people. It's become very popular. I think there are many who have subconsciously picked it up as just how things are done.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#255

Post by jerf »

thesuitonym wrote: post #223
dylan604 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how do you get people to view said directory if they've never heard of it?

Consider that Hacker News does not advertise, and yet somehow you are here.

Hacker News does not advertise because it is a gigantic advertisement for YCombinator. This is not some sort of scurrilous accusation, they may not be constantly banging the table about it but it's not a secret.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#256

Post by socalgal2 »

I have disqus on several sites. No ads so shrug?

Having written my own multiple times and used several others before disqus I’m unlikely to switch unless the new thing is super compelling and I believe it will stick around.

Spam is hard to deal with. Akismet fails miserably for me. disqus has the fact they can track users across sites. Spam one site and you’re off all sites.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#257

Post by tcfhgj »

dylan604 wrote: post #237
thesuitonym wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that Hacker News does not advertise, and yet somehow you are here.

Hacker News does not depend on me buying products from it for it's survival. If you can't see the difference in why a company cannot depend on word of mouth, then you're just really not trying to have an honest conversation.

Plenty companies don't advertise by shoving unwanted ads in people's faces.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#258

Post by mixedmath »

drnick1 wrote: post #246

"After years with Pi-hole, which now blocks over a million domains, I’ve become incredibly accustomed to a mostly ad-free web. Without realizing it, I’d forgotten what the typical internet experience feels like." It is estimated that between 30% and 50% of Internet users run ad blockers. I haven't see a single ad in years. Besides, Pi-holes are kind of overrated. First, ad blockers running in the browser are simply m…

That seemed to me like a radically high estimate of people who use ad blockers. But I see that the first page of results on MyFavoriteWebSearchEngine support that claim.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#259

Post by Tsiklon »

dylan604 wrote: post #219
tetris11 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the poster is lamenting the general quality of all advertised products in general. If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough.

Two of the three names are unknown to me. This word of mouth delivery did nothing to make me interested in any of the three though. I have no idea what any of them actually do. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as how best to internet search "Henry".

All 3 are appliance manufacturers. Miele and Henry are predominantly vacuum cleaner brands.

Henry hoovers are ubiquitous in the professional market in the UK and well regarded for durability, performance and the cute face all their cleaners have. Essentially anyone in the UK will have used, or seen one be used

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#260

Post by tonymet »

I removed Disqus 7 years ago when I noticed their Javascript+HTML embeds ballooned my 75kb static blog into 3mb+ with sluggish loading times. It also failed every Performance test like Chrome Devtools Lighthouse Perf Tab.

We need to ruthlessly audit third party deps for privacy, perf, spam etc.

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