Dan GoodinDear readers. If you're not willing to support the families of those you want to read then we regretfully will be preventing you from obtaining our work for free.
https://infosec.exchange/@StefanThinks@beige.party/116199534759633586
Taggart@dangoodin Good. The advertising model needs to die for the internet to live.
Agreed. Most sites far prefer subscriptions over serving ads.
Agnieszka R. Turczyńska@dangoodin @mttaggart But does any of them promise to not show me the ads at all? Or do I need to pay for the access, and block ads anyway?
Christian Huitema@dangoodin I understand the feeling. The problem is that people are blocking ads for safety and privacy reasons, not just because they are stingy. The only alternative then is paying a subscription, which does not scale very well. I do that for several publishers, including yours, but I don't want to manage more than maybe 10. I wish there was some kind of syndication. Or maybe ads that don't carry scripts and trackers.
Émilio Gonzalez@huitema @dangoodin I'm pretty sure the vast majority use adblockers to block ads and that privacy and safety is not a concern. I feel this reason is very niche in the adblock userbase
Dave@res260 @huitema @dangoodin Privacy and safety are the entire reason I use blockers. Block trackers with something like PrivacyBadger and you'll see that it isn't about serving ads, but collecting your personal information and tracking you across all of your devices. I'd have a tiny bit of respect for them if they would just own up and say something like "If you want to access our site, you need to let us collect your personal information and sell your data."
@zornslemmon @huitema @dangoodin I understand and I use adblockers for this reason as well. My point is that we are the minority and the vast majority of users don't care about that, so this messaging probably make some people disable their adblocker to get access to the content. Even I sometimes do that even if I'm aware of the consequences
David J. Atkinson@zornslemmon @res260 @huitema @dangoodin Same. I block trackers and advertising with trackers using Pi-Hole on my home network. It blocks between 5,000 and 8,000 PER DAY. Nevertheless , because of database hacks at companies I (formerly) patronized, my personal info is out there and for sale. My identity has been stolen twice in the last six months! So, I will absolutely not tolerate advertising or trackers and if a URL gets on one of my blocklists, then bye-bye. AND, I tell others. Lots of people.
lxskllrI consider ads a security risk. I won't disable my security to read an article.
I wouldn't mind them so much if they were like newspaper ads. Static ads hosted on the visited server. They want a new ad, it gets submitted for review. Less valuable than tracker ads, but more valuable than the nothing they get from me blocking ads.
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial@dangoodin you can pry my adblocker from my cold dead hands. pick any other monetisation path.
❄️SnowyIn🇨🇦❄️@dangoodin
I really struggle thinking of a way around the problem because buying a subscription is fair to the author but many folk can't afford more then one or two subscriptions
I really struggle thinking of a way around the problem because buying a subscription is fair to the author but many folk can't afford more then one or two subscriptions
Thomas Traynor@dangoodin And I use it due to the fact that those 'ads' are running very intrusive scripts. Not a problem showing me ads. Show me ads, just not those scripts siphoning off information about my machine and location.
Also, how do they know I am running adblockers unless they are running extremely intrusive scripts to detect what I am running?
Zimmie@thomastraynor @dangoodin At least some ad-blocker-blockers are shown by default, then disabled by something loaded with the ads. If you don’t load the bypass from Doubleclick or wherever, the script runs and shows the “Home taping is killing the record industry” popover.
WowSuchCyber@dangoodin let me buy articles by the unit for an acceptable price instead of forcing me to let google and facebook invade all my life and we'll talk, otherwise, yes, sorry, goodbye to your articles. It's an open market, other will take the spot.
Oriel Jutty 
If you're not willing to support the families of those you want to read
... and their 947 closest partners ...
Baloo Uriza@dangoodin You would have a point if pretty much every ad vendor on the planet wasn't a malware distribution network and privacy invading leech. My identity is not your income.
fair enough. Sounds like you and legitimate publishers trying to support workers families are at a impasse. still it's a decision people like the OP choose to make and hence blaming them on social media is waste of energy.
@dangoodin Did you know money can be exchanged for goods and services?
Niklas Goerke@dangoodin often, I would be very much willing to pay a small fee to be able to read an article. Just like I would buy a printed magazine. I just can’t pay for a subscription for all of the news outlets.
It would be awesome if you could provide a simple „pay 2,50 € to access this article“ process.
yes, agreed. I run into this predicament multiple times per day. Interesting that micro payments has been one of the Internet's longest running unsolved problems.
Manoj Kasichainula@dangoodin @Niklas There was (at least from my perspective as a reader) a good solution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroll_(web_service) . Twitter (pre-Elon) chewed them up.
But also, some publications decided to keep requiring a paywall and just killed the ads behind said paywall, or maybe the other way around, I forget. It was easily defeated by ad-blockers, regardless. A version that actually paid for reading the site without ads or tracking (at higher expense) would be welcome.
Mans R@Niklas @dangoodin That would be pretty steep for a single article when you can get a full printed issue for roughly the same amount. I agree though, there ought to be a simple way to pay a sensible amount for occasional reading. There's no way I'm paying full subscription price for all the publications where I read (in full) one or two articles per month.
@mansr @dangoodin sometimes I do buy full printed issues for just one article. Fair prices also depend on the kind of article.
But sure, pricing needs to be fair and I‘m certain that there are people out there who are better in determining a fair price than I am.
But sure, pricing needs to be fair and I‘m certain that there are people out there who are better in determining a fair price than I am.
notanowl
Diogenes Pontifx@dangoodin I do subscribe to Ars Technica because it consistently publishes articles I find useful. I want to support journalists, but I can’t afford to subscribe to every website that occasionally publishes something I want to read. And I won’t risk my privacy and security by turning off my ad blocker. I wish micropayments were available for these situations, but when faced that paywall I will just go away. (Wondering why micropayments never went anywhere — seems like a missed opportunity)
edafeI am convinced that actual micropayments would face a lot of resistance.
Because providing you with an effective means to target your spending would also encourage you to focus your attention…
@me @dangoodin I’ll bet that turning my adblocker off would give a website pennies at best. I’d gladly pay nickels or dimes to read something useful. Sometimes even a few dollars. Seems like there should be a financial incentive there. Or does ad revenue pay better than I realize?
AMS@dangoodin Shame that even subscribing doesn't stop the ads and tracking. I pay for a several news site subscriptions and they all fail regularly when using an adblocker, even when I explicitly let the subscription cookie through. It seems news sites are more interested in tracking and malware than in selling subscriptions.
Mutesplash@dangoodin If only you _could_ support the people you want to read, directly. There's a third party in this situation that is the objection...