Advertising is getting stupid...er

[Crystal]

Yep, 'cause a lot of news sites make most of whatever money they make off the ad revenue and if you have an ad-blocker, there goes their money.

They're horrible offenders. I have ad-blockers and paywall bypassers for those sites. No thank you, paid content.

 

[Webster]

and paywall bypassers

Oooooh, for some sites them's fighting words...

 

[Kat]

They're horrible offenders. I have ad-blockers and paywall bypassers for those sites. No thank you, paid content.

News sites are the worst! Videos playing, ads everywhere, it's ridiculous. I completely quit clicking on news articles until I got an ad blocker, because they were unreadable without one.

I think paywalls are fair, they have to pay people for the content, especially places that actually do investigative journalism. I'm not going to pay for a bunch of different sites though.

I wish there were a general subscription to the Internet sometimes. Although that'd have its own problems.

 

[Crystal]

Oooooh, for some sites them's fighting words...

Indeed!

News sites are the worst! Videos playing, ads everywhere, it's ridiculous. I completely quit clicking on news articles until I got an ad blocker, because they were unreadable without one.

Oh absolutely, and they're ALL using the those damn clickbait titles now to force you read the article. Concise news from a concise source, that's all I want. BreakingNews.com was awesome, it was like a live aggregating news site run by different editors that would publish news from everywhere, no spin on the news, just the actual news. But it was shut down and now it redirects to one of the big companies again. Shame.

I think paywalls are fair, they have to pay people for the content, especially places that actually do investigative journalism. I'm not going to pay for a bunch of different sites though.

They are fair, to an extent, but when you pay to subscribe and you're met with garbage articles...it's a slap in the face. So I just bypass, which I know is wrong, but...ya' know...provide better content and I'll pay when I can.

I wish there were a general subscription to the Internet sometimes. Although that'd have its own problems.

I mean, technically we do. Our ISP...we pay them to give us access to the internet. That used to mean the whole internet.

 

[MrDawn]

Yep, 'cause a lot of news sites make most of whatever money they make off the ad revenue and if you have an ad-blocker, there goes their money.

I remember a porn site that I used to visit regularly years ago noticed some users were using ad blockers and put up a notice on the site asking that people please turn off Ad Block and that ads are how they make their free money to keep the site running. They went on to say that the ads were not harmful. Guess what? I still used my adblocker anyway.

 

[Kat]

I mean, technically we do. Our ISP...we pay them to give us access to the internet. That used to mean the whole internet.

Well, sure, but none of that money goes to anybody creating content.

They went on to say that the ads were not harmful.

Pfft, I doubt that was even true. Unless they picked the ads themselves (unlikely) and were very thorough vetting them (even more unlikely), then they cannot guarantee that. Major ad networks definitely get malicious ads. Plus many ads are for sites that are shady, and I'd argue those ads are also harmful.

 

[Crystal]

Well, sure, but none of that money goes to anybody creating content.

True, true, it never used to be about monetization back then, either. You just had the internet and people had sites.