7 ms·
There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription a
by richardknop 9y ago
There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either:
a) whitelist their site in my adblocker
b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker
- aphextron 9y agoWhich results every single time in choosing option C: the browser back button.
- krisdol 9y agoUsually two or three times because fuck sites who hijack browser history because I scroll a little too far
- Filligree 9y agoIt's fine if they're just letting you bookmark the particular spot in the page, but this is what replaceState is for. pushState is definitely wrong.
- njharman 9y agoThat's what open in new tab is for. Close tab is way better than back. Easier, more consistent and faster.
- digital_trench 9y agoUse the mouse wheel/middle button. Will open a new tab when you click on a link and will close a tab when you click on the tab. This changed my life.
- TheRealPomax 9y agotoo fickle: half the time I endup also scrolling. ctrl-click is far more predictable. Same result, less "trying to press a thing designed to roll".
- YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y agoOn most mouses that's not an issue (assuming no motoric problems). Ctrl-click, on the other hand, requires the use of both hands in most cases.
- mod 9y agoI've never had a mouse where it wasn't a problem. I don't buy uber-quality mouses, so I'm down in the trenches with the vast majority of mouse users with moderate-to-low quality hardware. I'm also often using a laptop, on linux, and I do the middle-click-simulation (both buttons at once) with two hands, which is really annoying. I suppose I could fix it. Also I always have my left hand on the keyboard, so for me it's not a problem to ctrl-click. Ctrl+click doesn't work on a tab, though--have to hit the X.
- dingo_bat 9y agoMy laptop has a middle click button ;)
- 13of40 9y agoThat's a cool trick. Thank you.
- Klathmon 9y agoThat's most likely a well known issue WITH adblock, not the site.
- richardknop 9y agoSome of the websites that do that have solid content though. Not good enough for me to pay them though so I end up clicking the back button and using alternative sources.
- tehlike 9y agosoon, someone will implement one-subscription for online content - something like netflix.
- Griffinsauce 9y agoAlready happening in some form with Blendle. It will always be bundles though, the internet is too huge.
- tehlike 9y agowhy? what if sites are rewarded based on time user spends on it actively? what if websites just sign up to be part of the network, and uses common api (think: subscriptionService.isPaidUser() { show content } else { say "sorry" }
- njharman 9y agoYou realize that everyone CBS, Disney, everyone is starting their own subscription service and (for many) pulling out of Netflix. Besides grasping at maintaining stranglehold over distribution. They are hoping to replicate the cable model. Pay for the base package where all the crap no one wants is, then pay for all these extra premium packages.
- djsumdog 9y agoIt's kinda like the channels a-la-carte they've fought against for two decades.
- eli 9y agoThis idea has been Coming Soon for decades. But maybe that's ok. I really like that I can visit the vast majority of links I click on for free.
- marksomnian 9y agoOr D: add the popup asking me to disable my adblocker... to my adblocker. Only works on some sites, but where it does it's effective.
- djsumdog 9y agoIf I'm really interested, I might open the inspector and delete the offending div, but often scroll is still hijacked or I'll delete div after div up the stack only to accidentally delete the content too. It's a pain and it's often easier to use the cached version from a search engine or some archiving service.
- MentallyRetired 9y agoAfter you delete the div, go to the body tag and delete the relevant class, or add style="overflow: auto !important;" to the body tag.
- badwolf 9y agoI'm quite fond of the "Kill Sticky" bookmarklet javascript:(function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()
- tushar-r 9y agoTypically, I find that toggling Javascript Off works - like with Wired.
- abhi3 9y agoI always enable ads on a URL if it asks me to (provided they don't over advertise/have spammy advertisements), kind of already feel shitty about what is effectively stealing content for free so those notices just make me conscious of the guilt. I wonder how others rationalize blocking ads and not subscribing either but still feeling entitled to access the content.
- devrandomguy 9y agoI block all ads because my safety is a higher priority than the site's profitability. Internet ads are a malware vector, with no accountability. Also, advertising companies have made an art out of psychological manipulation; I protect my mind by filtering their input from my senses. Just saw your subscription update. Why would I subscribe to something that I am unlikely to return to? The only solution that I can think of, are micropayments. Perhaps this financial pressure will motivate the powers that be to eliminate roadblocks to its implementation.
- ams6110 9y agoI don't feel guilty about it, just like I don't feel guilty about not reading ads in magazines or newspapers. If you put something on the web, and you want me to pay for it, put up a paywall. If you want to instead serve ads, don't expect me to read them (or load them, even). My bandwidth, my decision.
- clarry 9y agoI don't feel entitled to access arbitrary content. But by the time a web server has already sent it my way for free, I don't give any fucks. If they can't afford to do that, then they shouldn't do that. But they probably do it because they can afford it, and find it profitable enough. I'll be happy to leave if the site sends me a paywall instead of content.
- djsumdog 9y ago4) accessing the site via archive.is or similar service.
- manigandham 9y agoThat's honestly what they would prefer if you're not going to make them any money. It's fair to both sides.
- randcraw 9y agoUnless it's The Atlantic, which blocks all article access from my iPad even though I'm a subscriber. I can read their content only with a computer-based browser (with ad blocker, of course).
- Shank 9y agoI contacted them about this, actually. I subscribed to The Atlantic's digital edition expecting ad free: it turns out you need to specifically get an ad free subscription from them. The one offered on the block page is what you need or it doesn't count. Bonus: After I asked The Atlantic, they partially refunded my subscription and a magazine arrived at my door (for my now cancelled and partially refunded digital only subscription).
- dec0dedab0de 9y agoI have just been blacklisting those sites for myself. I haven't missed out on anything yet.
- nsebban 9y agoHow would you know what you missed, since you missed it ?
- gepoch 9y agoCall me crazy, but this seems like a pretty honorable scheme for profiting off of content. Someone put effort in to create content, and has the option of putting this kind of paywall up. There is a consumer choice made to sell their own attention by viewing ads, pay a subscription fee for the content directly, or just move on to free content elsewhere. That said, most places where you pay the subscription fee will ALSO show you ads and silently sell your data, but still... The above scheme feels reasonable in principle.
- anilgulecha 9y agoPublically accessible content simply wants to have their search engine pie (public content) and eat it too (paywall). Ad-blocking makes sure they have to make the hard choice of putting content behind authorization. A user-agent's job is simply to be the user's agent, and not the publisher's monetization platform.
- richardknop 9y agoPerhaps. They are losing people like me though. I will never pay for a subscription to read a website and I will continue using adblockers to get rid of annoying ads. But they could still profit from me. There are less annoying ways to monetize which I might accept. For example affiliate links to buy products I am interested in (books, video games, gadgets). I'd be willing to pay % extra for some nice product in order a fund a website which pointed me to it. Or extra traffic I'd refer to their site.
- rewrew 9y agoThere's no way that affiliate links can pay the bills for publishers; numbers don't ad up (otherwise everyone would do it, and no one does -- well, actually, there's extremely limited situations where it works in some consumer corners, but those situations are limited and the total amount of revenue is also very limited). And how much extra traffic are you really going to refer? Ads are sold on the thousand -- $X per thousand (consumer can be cents up to maybe $8, B2B much higher). So even if you referred 200 people that's not even worth any effort. Unfortunately, if you're not going buy a subscription, register for a paper or click on an ad, you're probably not worth anything to the site anyhow.
- xigency 9y agoI'm surprised no one has mentioned this alternative: disable JavaScript. It's fairly easy in any browser to create a list of websites to ignore JavaScript on.
- bradleyankrom 9y agodoing so breaks an increasing number of sites. "so don't visit those sites" is the common response, and is fine as general policy, but sometimes isn't an option.
- logfromblammo 9y agoI have noticed that blocking scripts makes the pages of most local television stations break. But then I look at the list of 50 different domains blocked on the page, and I am not sorry--not one little bit. I don't really need to watch your little news video that badly. And I certainly don't want it to autoplay. They are by far the worst offenders among sites I am likely to encounter frequently, as destination links from aggregators and social media. Newspaper sites are far more well-behaved with respect to their scripts, but also more likely to directly monetize the page view.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y agoIt only works for some sites.
- neogodless 9y agoI see some disagreement with you, but I am somewhat of the opinion that I agree (though I don't think it's a great "common user" solution.) ScriptSafe is running and I allow some sites, trust a few domains, and the rest get, at best, temporary access to run local JavaScript if specific content I want isn't loading. I get the feeling the majority of sites don't even function without JavaScript at this point, and some intertwine their ad system with other "necessary" JavaScript, so it's tough to surf the web without some hassle. I don't think this is a perfect or even passable long-term mainstream solution.
- laurentdc 9y ago
- alkonaut 9y agoI think it's fair game to say "Our newspaper pays for quality journalists to do quality journalism, please consider subscribing or not using an adblocker on our site". I prefer this to the WaPo model of paywalling or having a limited number of articles. I do object to the Bloomberg model though, where they say "We notice you're using an ad blocker, which may adversely affect the performance and content on Bloomberg.com. For the best experience, please whitelist the site." Wth? No way. Please ask nicely, no FUD.
- manigandham 9y ago> Please ask nicely, Asking nicely doesn't work.
- ntsoeu8scrnoeu 9y agoSo being a dick about it will? It hasn't worked so far for me. I still block, and almost without exception still get the content.
- manigandham 9y agoThe verbiage isn't exactly assaulting anyone, and it sounds like you're being the dick if you can't see why publishers would like to make money.
- basseq 9y agoI agree it's fair game. But I think that message needs to recognize why I blocked those ads in the first place. It's not because "I don't like ads" or "I don't want to support you". It because the ads you were showing sucked: they bogged down my computer and they were malicious. I would very likely unblock a site if they spoke to that. "We've taken numerous steps in the last 3 months to increase your privacy and eliminate bad, bloated, malicious, and frankly user-unfriendly advertising. We value and will not abuse your trust in allowing us to share advertising with you."
- alkonaut 9y ago
- hellbanner 9y agoRight, because they aren't earning revenue otherwise.
- cisanti 9y agoWell, it sounds reasonable to ask that question if so many people have Adblock installed? I have always blocked ads and always (try) will be, but I this is the outcome from Adblock going mainstream. Yes, the ad networks/sites were the reason in the first place, but it doesn't matter. Another side-product is (hidden) "native advertising"... so many tweets/share/likes are purely marketing. That gay marriage article Madonna tweeted? Think twice before you believe he does it out of morals, most likely she is being paid to share that out with her audience.
- manigandham 9y agoIs this a complaint? I find this perfectly reasonable if you're browsing their content which they would like to be paid for.
- basseq 9y agoI've said this before, but it bears repeating. "Unblock or Subscribe" misses the point. The the point is this: I don't trust you. I don't trust you not to show me scammy ads, load 2MB of tracking JS, maliciously redirect me, or generally ruin my overall user experience with your content you claim is so valuable. So I run an ad-blocker. I'm blocking your infrastructure because I don't trust it and blocking your ads because I question your judgement. And the only other option you offer me is for me to give you my credit card number!? To infrastructure I don't trust and to a company whose judgement is in question. Nope.
- brettz 9y agoSo consume content from providers you trust.
- ntsoeu8scrnoeu 9y agoI click on "Reader Mode" in Safari, and see the content without the pop-up, which I don't have to click or touch in any way.
- tomjen3 9y agoI just globally turned of javascript, then enabled it on a site-by-site basis. I have been against this for a long time, but turns out I was wrong, and as a site effect this prevents most ads (it also makes sites loads fast).