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Wow. The mental gymnastics here are astounding. Every time the ad blocker argument comes up, in pop you affiliate defenders, crying "If you block our ads, we wi

Wow. The mental gymnastics here are astounding. Every time the ad blocker argument comes up, in pop you affiliate defenders, crying "If you block our ads, we will all disappear!". No, buddy- crummy sites that make bad decisions with regards to advertising and/or content (or lack thereof), would disappear, as very much needs to happen. People don't just not want to pay for content, we are just tired of we, ourselves, being the commodity with which it's paid for. Charge a subscription, start a patreon or what have you. If your business (make no mistake, if you make money off your website, that's very much what it is), survives or thrives, kudos. If not, it wasn't feasible and you need to rework your business plan or start a new one altogether. Ads are the laziest, most anti-consumer way you can possibly make money. Many of us have been around since the internet began, and we remember the years of wonderful, continuing content that existed before advertising (and even after the pop ups and banners, it was a long while before the site operators made any real money), and will continue to do so after ads as we know them have shifted yet again.

logicallee 10y ago
I'm not going to pay you anything, but would you mind expanding on your comment by interviewing some reporters, editors, ad executives, and reading trade journals from the advertising and media industries? Would you also prepare some charts showing revenue, the number of editorially independent news sources, and the monetary effects of paywalls and related content, and how it's changed over the past few years? I know I'm asking you to do all this for free, but if you want you can put a line at the end of your post "-------Sponsor message follows-------" and regardless of what goes below it (which you don't have to look at) you'll get $1000. You'll stay editorially independent and can write whatever you want, just make sure it is honest, thorough, and well-researched. On second thought let's nix that $1000 - could you just do it for free, maybe throw up a PayPal link and see if someone wants to send you money. I'd like you to do this research, I'd be interested in reading it. I think about 2 days is enough for you to write this article, you shouldn't have to talk to more than about a dozen people and read maybe 2-3 trade journals, which you could find in any large library. I look forward to reading your comments. (Forget I mentioned anything about the ad payment, that's now off the table - that was some stupid mental gymnastics on my part, my apologies.)

logicallee 10y ago

I'm not going to pay you anything, but would you mind expanding on your comment by interviewing some reporters, editors, ad executives, and reading trade journals from the advertising and media industries? Would you also prepare some charts showing revenue, the number of editorially independent news sources, and the monetary effects of paywalls and related content, and how it's changed over the past few years? I know I'm asking you to do all this for free, but if you want you can put a line at the end of your post "-------Sponsor message follows-------" and regardless of what goes below it (which you don't have to look at) you'll get $1000. You'll stay editorially independent and can write whatever you want, just make sure it is honest, thorough, and well-researched. On second thought let's nix that $1000 - could you just do it for free, maybe throw up a PayPal link and see if someone wants to send you money. I'd like you to do this research, I'd be interested in reading it. I think about 2 days is enough for you to write this article, you shouldn't have to talk to more than about a dozen people and read maybe 2-3 trade journals, which you could find in any large library. I look forward to reading your comments. (Forget I mentioned anything about the ad payment, that's now off the table - that was some stupid mental gymnastics on my part, my apologies.)