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Don't listen to what people say, listen to what people do. If they're blocking ads, work out why and what you can do. You've just seen you can't stop them. I f

by ximeng 17y ago

Don't listen to what people say, listen to what people do. If they're blocking ads, work out why and what you can do. You've just seen you can't stop them. I feel for the guys who were laid off. That sucks. Life is tough. But this is not the only way to make money. I block advertising because it annoys me. I pretty much stopped buying music and deleted all the non-free mp3s on my hard disk because of the attitude of the music corps to their users. But I give money to sites that provide value and more importantly build a relationship. That's what Techdirt understands and almost certainly has got them some donations today from people like me who appreciate reading articles by someone who can express what I'm thinking better than I can myself. p.s. look in the linked article's comments and you'll see this (not from me incidentally): "My comment asked Ars why there's no donation button. I've yet to receive a reply. I will not turn off my adblocking option for any site ever again. If these sites truly are dependent on ad revenues to survive, it's not my problem." - have you guys tried a donate button, and if so how were your results? I'm not a regular reader but it's a pretty big jump from reading a few articles to subscribing for 6 months.

mrkurt 17y ago
My whole post talked about what they do. Many of our users block all ads. The only thing we can do to keep people from blocking ads is... not run ads. Most users don't make an explicit choice to do this, they run ad blockers and block lists that other people maintain. You may be shocked to hear this, but most of our readers responded really well to Ken's post the other day. We had about 50x as many new subscribers since Friday as we've ever had over an equivalent amount of time. We also saw a noticeable increase in our ad views/pageviews ratio. It's good that you donated to TechDirt, I love seeing people throw some money towards sites they love. We've run donation systems in the past and they haven't really been worth maintaining, but I'm sure we'll consider running them again. Selling services for a fixed price seems to work quite a bit better, even if those services are "see our site ad free, minus the guilt".
- ximeng 17y ago
  There you go. Thanks for the thoughtful reply, your responding to comments here really makes me think better of your site and I'm sure people are more likely to subscribe as a result of your engagement. Actually I'm not too surprised that people turned off their adblockers when you asked them. That's what I'm saying - engage with people and if you get on their wavelength they'll respond positively. I wasn't sure how you'd take my comment, but I'm encouraged by your response. Some comments by Ars in the original DOI thread were offensive ("f*ing Wladimir Palant"), your reply restores my faith. When I surf the internet, most sites I visit I don't build up a particular relationship with. I'll just read an article here or there. I won't read through all the terms and conditions or turn off adblockers for every site I visit, life's too short. But if it turns out Ars provides a useful service in the future, I just might if you guys ask nicely like this. I still question the sustainability of this strategy, but then again I don't run a successful web site, so who am I to say. Thanks again for the positive response, and good luck.

by ximeng 17y ago

mrkurt 17y ago

My whole post talked about what they do. Many of our users block all ads. The only thing we can do to keep people from blocking ads is... not run ads. Most users don't make an explicit choice to do this, they run ad blockers and block lists that other people maintain. You may be shocked to hear this, but most of our readers responded really well to Ken's post the other day. We had about 50x as many new subscribers since Friday as we've ever had over an equivalent amount of time. We also saw a noticeable increase in our ad views/pageviews ratio. It's good that you donated to TechDirt, I love seeing people throw some money towards sites they love. We've run donation systems in the past and they haven't really been worth maintaining, but I'm sure we'll consider running them again. Selling services for a fixed price seems to work quite a bit better, even if those services are "see our site ad free, minus the guilt".

ximeng 17y ago
There you go. Thanks for the thoughtful reply, your responding to comments here really makes me think better of your site and I'm sure people are more likely to subscribe as a result of your engagement. Actually I'm not too surprised that people turned off their adblockers when you asked them. That's what I'm saying - engage with people and if you get on their wavelength they'll respond positively. I wasn't sure how you'd take my comment, but I'm encouraged by your response. Some comments by Ars in the original DOI thread were offensive ("f*ing Wladimir Palant"), your reply restores my faith. When I surf the internet, most sites I visit I don't build up a particular relationship with. I'll just read an article here or there. I won't read through all the terms and conditions or turn off adblockers for every site I visit, life's too short. But if it turns out Ars provides a useful service in the future, I just might if you guys ask nicely like this. I still question the sustainability of this strategy, but then again I don't run a successful web site, so who am I to say. Thanks again for the positive response, and good luck.