Aurynn ShawThe more people we can get using adblockers, the better the internet will be for everyone.
Do your part: help get adblockers installed today.
Geoff Campbell@aurynn There needs to be a happy middle ground. Without advertising, nothing gets funded. I wish it wasn't so, no doubt you also wish it wasn't so, but unfortunately it is so. The decision was made back in the '90s that we wanted a free Internet funded by ads. 1/3
Hurricane Daveosaurus@Geoff_Campbell @aurynn There is an alternative - a free internet funded by volunteer labour. I ran a web site for a few years. It wasn't beautiful but it was (hopefully) useful to its very niche target audience. Total advertising on the site: zero. I paid for the web space as part of my internet bill, programmed the HTML in a text editor (with help from friends). It's possible.
Dan Thornton@Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell @aurynn
Big media companies can afford to switch to other revenue models, because they have the staff and resources...
Smaller creators might just give up if they can't at least cover their financial costs (Free web space isn't part of most broadband, most people don't program their own HTML sites, etc).
Not everyone starts internet projects to just dabble in their spare time.
@Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell @aurynn
I'd advocate for selective ad blocking - punish the intrusive ones, but support those creators you want to continue.
Unfortunately micropayments, Patreon, etc etc only work for a relatively small number of people, if at all...
CaptainBorracho@badgergravling @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell @aurynn Totally agree .. there definitely needs to be a middle ground.
I'd also like to see something that completely blocks those sites that exist solely to sit at the top of search results and hoover up traffic, that are just adverts with no actual information (usually just some machine generated text that repeats the question being asked, etc).
Guess that's more of an issue with the search engines though and their algorithms.
@captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell @aurynn
Yep - to be fair, search engines have an interest in serving quality content so people continue to use them (until they replace it with scraped AI answers), so they do try to combat low quality spam sites with varying degrees of success.
But as a small content creator in my space time, I can't justify it costing me money to share my personal work, and advertising offsets the costs involved
@captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell @aurynn
And while I'm all in favour of other revenue streams, it requires either deep pockets or a strong personal brand.
I'm not equipped to become a celebrity Youtuber, and I don't have the funds to set up live events etc.
So as someone who would love to earn a living by writing about things he's passionate about on his own websites, advertising is a necessary evil...
@captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell @aurynn
(For ref - my day job is a self-employed SEO/writer for clients, which is significantly more lucrative, but doesn't stop me wanting to build my own online homesteads)
@badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell no one owes you a viable business model
@aurynn @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell
No-one owes you free content, either.
@badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell you're right! And they are free to do whatever they like with their content.
But I do not owe them a viable business model selling my attention to their customers.
@aurynn @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell
You're perfectly fine to use an ad blocker...
The issue is when you tell everyone to do it because 'the internet will be better for everyone'.
Because that's never the case for anything - there are always winners and losers. In this case, any small creator trying to cover their costs and earn to reinvest
@aurynn @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell
I come from a working class family and scraped into the media after blagging work experience. Luckily my parents could just about help out.
Anything that reduces the chance of poorer people being able to create anything is bad.
Especially when they're clinging on in the face of AI churnalism wiping them all out.
@badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell And? You are still not owed a viable business model. If your business is not resilient that is *not my problem*.
Mike Stevens 
@aurynn @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell this is an utterly tiresome line you're repeating. It is beyond pointless if you aren't also going to present a workable and widely embraceable alternative that doesn't leave people by the wayside. Small-time creators, local / small-town journalists, journalists already working and supporting a family under the model you so deplore (👋), people who can't afford the cost of subscriptions that would actually support the business, etc.
Quit your job and make it happen. But no, no, we get it, you don't owe anybody anything — sadly you also seem content with bleeting the same line without offering any ideas beyond the sorts of idealistic, blinkered solutions that would require massive social upheaval (because UBI ain't coming without a revolution or a very, very long generational change in voting patterns).
But hey, I hear you: you're totally here for a real, literal revolution. Forgive me if I'm not ready to throw my actual living children into the destruction of this completely inequitable society that I've managed to carve out a little corner of like so many other privileged white men (and I am absolutely not being sarcastic there, I know how easy I've had it compared to so many others even despite my welfare-funded and broken family upbringing). And, yep, there's a contradiction in what I'm saying, but that is the terrifying and gut-wrenching reality of being a parent. So you can advocate for burning it all down, but there will be millions who simultaneously agree with you in principle while also fighting you because even though they want a better future for their children, they also have to keep them alive in the here and now. I'm selfish enough, and realistic enough, to say I don't want a "better internet for everyone" at the expense of my children's last breaths. I will go through life helping in the small ways I can without also destroying my career, because that's the daily reality of parenting. I can hate the economy we tolerate and still not do anything radical about it, because I have a career that supports my children in the here and now, even despite the uncertain (or rather quite certain) future all of these careers are creating.
But yep, you don't owe me a working business model. I heard you the first 40 useless times.
I'm the selfish one.
@mikestevens @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell It is not my job to provide a viable business model. I'm not going to quit my job and provide them a viable business model, that's ridiculous.
It's not my role, or anyone else who is saying "I am not participating in this business model", to give you a better one. It is *your* job to diversify your business, and if you can't, then your business deserves to die.
@aurynn @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell yep, heard you the first 41 times you bleeted unrealistic, non-inclusive, convenient 'this suits my lifestyle and economic rank' exhortations under the guise of "but my security!"
Just like every other revolutionary who failed to grasp the human condition and anticipate enough outcomes to not just land us in some other shit future.
@mikestevens @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell I'm still not responsible for your business model, and I refuse to be the product you sell to your customers.
I reject your moralisation about this. You wanted the risk of running a business, this is the risk. Diversify, or don't, I really don't care either way.
I'm here to build UBI and end capitalism, not buy into false neoliberal moralisations.
@aurynn @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell 42 times.
I reject your privileged, unrealistic concept of my privileged, realistic reality. Woopty do. We reject each other, look at us go! Doesn't get anything done, does it?
I'll look forward to you coming up with solutions to the end of capitalism and the institution of UBI that can actually be done and not just form the body of a lovely utopian thesis. Except that what'll actually happen is we'll both die angry and unaccomplished, because gosh darn it, the world just didn't get it.
@mikestevens @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell You're the one who crawled into my mentions with your bad takes, my dude.
@aurynn @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell crawled. Cute. Your one-liner revolution got me crawling.
You're right, champ, sport, I couldn't resist reminding you that we're not all living in your little bubble of a career unaffected by the life and death of advertising. That's on me. Got me a good one there.
Sadly, most of us, if you flip the blinkers down and scan broadly enough, do not live a life that would so easily survive an end to advertising — and for most of us, being told to "diversify your business model" is the same insulting shit hurled at people trying to buy a home or merely afford rent. "If you just stopped buying avocados..."
Anyway, 43: "I don't owe you..."
@aurynn @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell cool, I guess we're done.
It's important to remember that if you build an argument around ideas that require upheaval, you either won't get anywhere, or you'll have to build an army to make it happen. Is that you? Or are you ultimately just a commentator on the sidelines, like me?
@mikestevens @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell We were done like 8 posts ago.
We don't agree. We're not going to change for each other.
That's how it goes sometimes.
@aurynn @badgergravling @captainborracho @Daveosaurus @Geoff_Campbell it do be like that. And alas now I need to get on with the parenting, so I'll leave it there. Thanks for talking instead of blocking. I wish you well. I'm not opposed to being forced into a new approach to life by way of new laws and market forces, but like billions of others parents, I confess I lack the strength and conducive circumstances to bring it about.
Revolutions do happen! I'm not sure how many people who live through them are ever satisfied with the results, but I know it's hard to resist trying. The cause is always good, if not the motives and moral fortitude of those who end up becoming the leaders. 🤷♂️
@aurynn hey, it's been pointed out to me that my use of 'dude' was inappropriate, for reasons that are now very obvious to me. So I apologise for that! 🙏
@mikestevens Thank you