I'm always baffled when I see people using a desktop web browser without an ad blocker. We have the technology to fix this, folks! It takes like two clicks! Use it!
I've been using Chrome on Android, which is pretty much the experience you'd imagine (both pros and cons).
Firefox on Android supports extensions last time I used Android, and uBlock Origin works on mobile.
Can't remember when I've last seen an add on mobile and I use exactly that.
Firefox with uBlock Origin on a cheap ass Motorola phone with not very much memory.
Android: AdAway (works best with root access) — https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.adaway/
If a creator must make a living by throwing State Farm ads in front of me again and again, I can't say I have much sympathy.
Before world wars 90% of the public were independent workers. 1945-now is an anomaly.
Adam Smith’s form of capitalism is one where workers move around constantly. That’s where the activity in the market should be, not Cramer shouting at us through TV.
So sad Hollywood stars might have to do local theater rather than have disproportionate buying buyer; but its about their art and craft… right?
Aligning our agency to the drum beat of linear productivity is a relic of the world war industrial production machine.
Humans need the diversity of experience or reality feels fractal and we go mad over preservation of outdated ideals.
Maybe creators can add a "Buy me a coffee" button to their site, that should surely fix the problems?
There's a thing called stability and reliance on something. Ads is something you can rely on. It does not make you produce content and at the back of your mind think, "Am I going to pay my rent this month?". If you think everyone is out there making big bucks just because they opened a website and put some ads on it, you're wrong. Not only does it take time to build reputation and a following, people just don't out of the blue come and throw money at you.
A lot of people have this notion that there is too much SEO spam and too many ads, but what I think a lot of people are really saying is that, "All I want is just free content. Give me a raw white background with a slab of text centered in the middle of it and I will be on my way.".
That is not how this world works, and trying to argue about it just makes you look selfish.
Not necessarily, especially in the long term.
> If you think everyone is out there making big bucks just because they opened a website and put some ads on it, you're wrong.
I never said or implied that.
> Not only does it take time to build reputation and a following, people just don't out of the blue come and throw money at you.
Not my problem.
> what I think a lot of people are really saying is that, "All I want is just free content. Give me a raw white background with a slab of text centered in the middle of it and I will be on my way."
No idea what that has to do with anything.
> That is not how this world works, and trying to argue about it just makes you look selfish.
I don't care if I look selfish.
Last I checked, YouTube is going strong on 17 years with ads.
To clarify my precious statement, just because ad revenue helps a creator early on doesn't mean they will get the same payout as time goes on, and YouTube has no qualms about demonetizing creators for any reason they see fit. To top it off, the same number of ads is likely to bring in less revenue as time goes on. Both YouTube ads and Adsense used to pay out a lot more than they do today.
Ad blocking is a very common activity that is legal in every jurisdiction that I'm aware of. Since ad blocking is legal and many users consider ads an unnecessary distraction, a time waster, or a privacy-invading scourge, users have strong incentives to block ads.
No publisher is obligated to release content with ads, and nobody is entitled to have a sustainable business that runs on ads. The notion that ads should be "something you can rely on" for profit is not consistent with the reality of business, because there is no business model that inherently deserves to be successful. If a publisher wants to ensure that they receive payment for any content they create that is consumed, they can require that payment upfront with a paywall.
Trying to characterize ad blocking as immoral because it benefits users over publishers isn't a winning strategy for publishers. Publishers need to create an actual incentive for users to fund their content, directly or indirectly, if they want to get paid. Since advertising is a monetization model that degrades the quality of the publisher's product and users can easily bypass ads with an ad blocker, more and more publishers are finding out over time that advertising isn't "something you can rely on" after all.
Nope. All I want is a viable way to support writers, musicians, videographers and other creatives that doesn't involve some climate killing cryptocurrency and doesn't require a credit card transaction per view. Then I'll be on my way.
> People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
> You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
> Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
> You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
It makes a difference.
Most people don't.
I'm just waiting for substack to realize that $60/year for every writer is too much, and make a curated bundle of writing, reinventing the newsletter/magazine.
Given that many people pay actual money in exchange for not seeing ads, I think this blanket statement is clearly false.
0: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-music-premium-8...
(And then again with their personal private information, and by buying not the thing they really needed but something that had more advertising budget behind it, ...)
They vehemently deny this, but I think the issue is that you can’t run with cookies disabled and also use the gmail web UI, so every time you click a link they track it.
Having said that, they seem to do a good job tracking my gmail (and nothing else) even if I use the IMAP gateway.
I am an extremely happy fastmail user, btw.
Aside from the other comments mentioning better ways to support them, yoy can allowlist content crwators you want to see ads from, or alternately just use the extension on certain sites like Gmail.
It's not an all or nothing proposition.
Where do I pick up my check?
Seriously though: Just pay the content creators directly.
If using patreon/etc is too hard, subscribe to apple news+ (the global market leader in this space).
If that is too click-baity, then set up a competitor that doesn’t objectively suck.
Running an ad blocker is required for safe use of the web these days. The "consequences" of content not getting produced are of far less impact than the consequences of failing to block malicious code contained in ads. You're argument says "me getting paid is more important than you protecting yourself from identity theft and privacy invasion." I don't accept the trade-off.
I’ve noticed the “N trackers blocked this week” thingy on my web browser is trending down rapidly now that I only read news here and on apple news+.
(Though Apple News+ is turning into 100% clickbait, so apparently the economic incentives are nearly as bad there as they are at FB and ad supported sites.)
With uBlock Origin it's trivial, I do this all the time. You click on the extension toolbar button, then on the huge "On/Off" button and it remembers your setting for that particular site forever. Literally two clicks.
do you really think ad money flows to creators?
My gut feeling here is that it’s way less than 50% (corporations, not indie creators spend the most on ads) which would mean on average you are looking at or engaging with a corporation not an indie creator
If you are reviewing stereo equipment or something like that, ads can make sense for all parties -- content creator, advertisers and audience. But for a lot of things, if you want your creative content to have real value, ads make no sense.
My most successful site is a resource for homeless Americans. They have little to no money to spend. Having ads on the site strikes me as tantamount to fraud because my audience can't reasonably be expected to buy enough stuff to make the ads make business sense for the advertisers.
I remember not using adblockers a long long time ago to keep supporting content creators - but once I saw the aggressive ad "shove-in-your-face" trend rising up, I could no longer go without an adblocker
It's also a pity that ads cause people to buy even more stuff, causing needless environmental harm.
I have no sympathy for ads as a monetization model.
What I don't support is Pichay's $220 million comp package at the cost of showing ads in the middle of my main productivity tool.
If they want to sabotage one of their products in this way - then I have no problem shouting from the rooftops for everyone to ditch google and adblock everything with impunity.
It's a broadly pro-user capability that native apps categorically lack. That humanity can actually participate in & have say on the computing medium is an incredible wonder. One, alas, that many people see as a weakness!!
Since most people are like that, there's a monetization barrier for a lot of content that could make it difficult for a lot of talented creators to keep the lights on.
Ads can be done in very annoying and unethical ways, but they can also be relatively benign.
I would welcome a better model less prone to abuse. Maybe a ubiquitous micropayment service. Like Patreon, but more available, like a little tip jar button that regular content creators can add, and more micro-er to cut down on transaction fees.