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“Your frustration is the product”

daringfireball.net

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Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#311

Post by Aurornis »

jes5199 wrote: post #77

I used to work at a startup that was trying to replace ads as the funding source for news (we failed, obviously) but the crazy thing we discovered is that the people who run news websites mostly don’t know where their ads are coming from, have forgotten how the ad system was installed in the first place, and cannot turn them off if they try we actually shipped a server-side ad blocker, for a parter who had so complet…

> the people who run news websites mostly don’t know where their ads are coming from, have forgotten how the ad system was installed in the first place, and cannot turn them off if they try

I think this might be selection bias in your customer base. I've had some friends who worked at a local news outlet. The ads on their website were a big deal and they had a full-time position dedicated to managing internet advertising.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#312

Post by Aurornis »

mikestew wrote: post #192
latexr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that Apple News+? Cheaper than $20, too. Alternatively, Libby is free (and yes, legal, though not available everywhere).

Isn’t that Apple News+? You would be correct, but...and I say this as a subscriber to Apple's "all-in-one" package...Apple News+ is in many ways garbage. Low-rent articles from publications whose time has long passed (looking at you, Popular Mechanics ), with Taboola-grade ads interspersed (as Gruber said recently, how many 30-something blonde women need hearing aids?). That said, stay away from the front page and go…

> You would be correct, but...

I agree that Apple News+ is bad, but I think this is an example of why these plans always fail:

Someone says "I would pay good money for a service that does..." and then the service that does the thing appears and the goalposts keep moving as people realize their threshold for wanting to pay for something is higher than they originally thought.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#313

Post by brianpan »

pcl wrote: post #194

It’s ironic seeing Gruber gripe about screen percentages used when his own website dedicates only about 50% of the screen width (on mobile) to content, and leaves the other half blank. Not to mention the light-grey-on-dark-grey and the tiny font. Just as I need an ad blocker to browse the modern web, I need Reader mode to read Gruber’s rant about it.

Optimal line length is a thing.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#314

Post by mikestew »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #268
mikestew wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised at the claim that The Guardian leaves very little room for the article. I loaded up a Guardian article this morning on my new 14" MBP, only to find out that there was so much crap on the page I couldn't even see the full headline without using Safari's "hide shit" feature.

> Safari's "hide shit" feature. Is this reader mode or some sort of adblock-style list? (if it's the latter, I'm looking for one that I can easily add without it breaking too many sites - in my experience, the "annoyance" lists for uBlock cause too much breakage to have them enabled by default).

https://support.apple.com/en-la/120682

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#315

Post by mikestew »

markdown wrote: post #263
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For all my bitching, I'd still recommend it" has been my take since I got it sometime last year. It's kind of remarkable -- the ads are absolute trash and the apps, while not bad, are a little weird in hard-to-define ways other than "Apple used to do better at this whole UI thing". But if you want just a handful of the paywalled publications it unlocks for you, it's a great deal.

> "For all my bitching, I'd still recommend it" Enshittificators love people like us.

Oh, it’s been this way from day one.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#317

Post by bartread »

likium wrote: post #104
superjared wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we actually shipped a server-side ad blocker, for a parter who had so completely lost control of their own platform that it was the only way to make the ads stop this is batshit insane, yet I believe it

"Parable of the broken window", except instead of preventing the kid from throwing the rocks, they hired a someone to catch the rocks midair.

Which sounds insane until you realise that you’ve just described in outline something very like the iron dome missile defence system, which actually exists in reality.

(And of course you’ll get no argument from me that it’s insane that such things need to exist at all, but such is the world we live in.)

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#318

Post by alexchantavy »

schneems wrote: post #295
wouterjanl wrote: post #291

I believe one of the reasons I keep coming back to hackernews is the absence of ads and the near complete focus on content. Shout out to those who work in the background to keep it like this. It would be interesting to hear from dang or other insiders how evident it is that this website is adfree. At some point there must have been someone who probably raised the idea that money could be made by injecting an ad or a…

Pedantic point: YC has ads, they are just blend in much better and are delivered in the same medium. Hiring posts (definitively) and tech posts (maybe) by YC companies. The whole product is one big ad for a venture fund. Its generally well done and unobtrusive. So kudos to them for that it goes relatively unnoticed.

Relevancy is a big point here. HN readers work in tech or are super interested in tech, YC companies do very technical things so hiring posts or launches tend to blend right in for the most part.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#319

Post by fud101 »

This reminds me of Amazon Prime video advertising Molly Mae. It knows I would never ever watch that trash but it shows it to me precisely for that reason, that'll I get annoyed enough to vent about it and contribute to it going viral. It works i guess, since I am typing this garbage on hn.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#320

Post by ratatougi »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #285
abrookewood wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just plain ridiculous. How the hell did they end up not knowing how to manage the content on their site?

hi, I'm a dev who was working in journalism around thirty years ago and still has some connections. The entire industry is run by actual journalists, it's one of the few industries where people who know how to do the job still rise to the top. Unlike most other industries, where the top brass are MBAs who don't actually know how to do things like build airplanes or write software or what have you. Which is honestly g…

Can you suggest some websites used to read RSS?
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