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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

#381

Post by snailmailman »

lelanthran wrote: post #341
snailmailman wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When google switched off uBlock origin, it took less than a week for my grandmother to call me in a panic because she clicked on a malicious Facebook ad. Google disabled the Adblock, Facebook let the ad run on their site, and Microsoft hosted the malicious site on their cloud provider. Shoutout to Microsoft for taking the site down within the hour after I reported it- more than I can say for any of the blatantly ille…

> When google switched off uBlock origin, it took less than a week for my grandmother to call me in a panic because she clicked on a malicious Facebook ad. What did your grandmother need Chrome for? You couldn't find the 5m it would take to set her up with Firefox?

She uses a super cheap Chromebook. Unfortunately I don’t think Firefox can be easily installed on it? I don’t think it’s even x86. It’s a very limited device, but all it needs to be capable of is loading Facebook and a few other specific sites- so it “works”

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

#382

Post by drnick1 »

EasyMark wrote: post #352
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally feel differently about the Pihole. I run one and it blocks a lot of telemetry traffic from smart TVs, apps like Netflix, etc. that are not originating from a browser. I'm showing a 23.1% block rate today. Damn. I played around with PiHole years ago on an original Raspberry Pi Model B, and kinda forgot about it--it broke some stuff, and most of my connected devices could run their own adblocker. Only in…

I bought an apple tv box so I could disconnect my samsung TV from the internet forever. I think no matter what you do they will find a way to spy on you through your TV. I'm sure there are android boxes that will do as well as apple TV too.

One could argue however that the Apple TV box also spies on you. It is just more limited in its ability to be malicious because it does not have a microphone or a camera. But it is still a problem because Apple, like Google, has fingers in many pies (phones, email, file storage, watches, smart devices) and can build very detailed profiles of individuals.

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

#383

Post by Forgeties79 »

genewitch wrote: post #379
fknorangesite wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all ads in podcasts are explicitly put into the audio file by the people making the podcast Yes, but those are dynamic too: if you go back and download old episodes, for example, you'll get the current run of ads.

No, that's incorrect. Not one of the podcasts i listen to re-master their mp3s, the checksums stay the same. In fact, most of the podcasts i listen to have no ads at all. I wonder if there's some misunderstanding, here. If i go watch like an LTT video where they had a sponser, 5 years ago, that same "native ad" will be in the video. I'm specifically saying that the podcast apps i use do not inject ads, but podcasts t…

Just to be clear, are you just saying the shows you listen to don’t do DAI, or are you doubting that DAI exists at all? I only ask because of your comment before the one I’m responding to here. It almost sounds like you think it isn’t possible or that no one does it.

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

#384

Post by fknorangesite »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #383
genewitch wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's incorrect. Not one of the podcasts i listen to re-master their mp3s, the checksums stay the same. In fact, most of the podcasts i listen to have no ads at all. I wonder if there's some misunderstanding, here. If i go watch like an LTT video where they had a sponser, 5 years ago, that same "native ad" will be in the video. I'm specifically saying that the podcast apps i use do not inject ads, but podcasts t…

Just to be clear, are you just saying the shows you listen to don’t do DAI, or are you doubting that DAI exists at all? I only ask because of your comment before the one I’m responding to here. It almost sounds like you think it isn’t possible or that no one does it.

Right? I'm confused. Saying "oh the ads are in the audio file" is exactly like saying that "the ads are in the html file."

It's not like the client app is inserting them.

I mean, I guess I can imagine an exceptionally-scummy podcast app, but that's not what we're talking about here.

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

#385

Post by genewitch »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #383
genewitch wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's incorrect. Not one of the podcasts i listen to re-master their mp3s, the checksums stay the same. In fact, most of the podcasts i listen to have no ads at all. I wonder if there's some misunderstanding, here. If i go watch like an LTT video where they had a sponser, 5 years ago, that same "native ad" will be in the video. I'm specifically saying that the podcast apps i use do not inject ads, but podcasts t…

Just to be clear, are you just saying the shows you listen to don’t do DAI, or are you doubting that DAI exists at all? I only ask because of your comment before the one I’m responding to here. It almost sounds like you think it isn’t possible or that no one does it.

a "podcast" is just an mp3 file, usually fetched by finding the URL via an rss feed. I am asking, perhaps a bit cheekily, "who is putting ads in", because that isn't a "feature" of podcasts. Stop getting podcasts from places that put ads in, support "podcasters" that don't do this scummy crap.

It's just an mp3 file!

edit: I should point out that i pitched, to Apple, the ability to dynamically insert ads sometime around ipod 5th gen, 2005-2006, but not for podcasts, but for downloadable videos, like "last night's TV show". I'm sorry i did this. I don't mean i had the idea and said "hey this is an idea", i had the entire infrastructure documented, it was drop in and go. Whoops.

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

#386

Post by eviks »

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…

> my assumption is that you want to read my article, and not to be distracted by whatever performance is happening in the comment section.

Besides the general issue with the assumption, what prevents you from using a non-distracting style instead?

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

#387

Post by genewitch »

fknorangesite wrote: post #384
Forgeties79 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, are you just saying the shows you listen to don’t do DAI, or are you doubting that DAI exists at all? I only ask because of your comment before the one I’m responding to here. It almost sounds like you think it isn’t possible or that no one does it.

Right? I'm confused. Saying "oh the ads are in the audio file" is exactly like saying that "the ads are in the html file." It's not like the client app is inserting them. I mean, I guess I can imagine an exceptionally-scummy podcast app, but that's not what we're talking about here.

when i use either of my podcast apps, it fetches an mp3 file (or streams it) and there's no additional ads (read this as "no additional non-native ads") that "change" when i listen again in a year. This means the podcasts that i listen to, i suppose, are not hosted on hosting platforms that inject ads. Because, as i think needs to be reiterated, podcasts are just mp3 files. you can host them with caddy, or nginx, or apache, all pointing at some file(s) in ./www/html/mp3/ One does not need to host it on "Acast" or other "podcast hosting providers", a podcast is just an mp3 file, which can be automatically fetched by anything that can download both rss and mp3 formatted files.

at a certain point, one has to ask themselves if whatever media they're ingesting is worth the scum.

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

#389

Post by eviks »

CIPHERSTONE wrote: post #320

I suspect 99.5% of blogs like this don't make any appreciable amount of money from ads. Which begs the question, why even do it? If it cheapens your readers experience and you are not making significant money from it, just don't do it at all. Everyone thinks their blog will make money, few do.

Where in the blog did you get the info that the author wanted to make ad money off their blog?

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

#390

Post by noosphr »

eviks wrote: post #388
noosphr wrote: post #31

Mailing lists are still the superior format. The barrier to entry is a feature and not a bug.

The barriers to comfortable use are a bug, though

Sounds like you need more Emacs in your life.

This post was written in Emacs.

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