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25 years ago I used to read Texas Monthly magazine (on paper) because it was some of the best journalism around. I finally unsubscribed when I had to flip throu

25 years ago I used to read Texas Monthly magazine (on paper) because it was some of the best journalism around. I finally unsubscribed when I had to flip through 16 pages of ads to get to the table of contents, and several ads per issue contained scratch-n-sniff perfume samples which meant that reading an article required you to smell like a bordello afterwards. Wired is the digital equivalent of that now. There's some great journalism in there, but no journalism is good enough to put up with a hostile attack on one's sensibilities just to read it.

freediver 6y ago
Similar to https://www.google.com/search?q=mattress https://www.google.com/search?q=mattress where 100% of all the content you see there is an ad (turn off your ad-blocker just to witness the monstrosity). Isn't this a direct insult to intelligence? And where and when do you draw the line?
- mehdix 6y ago
  You're right, by turning off my ad-blocker, my mobile screen was fully covered with ads. What constantly worries me however, is what happens when most visitors use ad-blockers? My guess is, a war would be declared against current web standards, where users can still modify DOM and remove unwanted content. Edit: reword for clarity.
- esperent 6y ago
  There isn't much difference with adblock on or off for this page for me (using Chrome on Windows). With adblock off, there are three obvious ads on the top right of the page, search results on the left. With adblock on, these are gone. In both cases, the top of the search results is a map with a few shops listed, and under this are normal search results. Repeating this on mobile, the ads are moved inline above the map. They take up about 50% of the screen. That is a bit intrusive. However, I have muscle memory that automatically scrolls down a bit after searching and to be honest, I would not have even noticed them if I wasn't looking. I don't know where the the 100% of content being ads claim is coming from. Perhaps it's different in different regions? I'm not trying to be an apologist for Google here, by the way. However, when it comes to intrusive ads there are far worse offenders (although perhaps not when it comes to behind the scenes data collection, which is a bigger issue).
  - freediver 6y ago
    Here is what I see: https://imgur.com/a/OLSWA3K https://imgur.com/a/OLSWA3K As far as I can tell pretty much everything on that screen (including map results) is an ad. That's 100% commercial results on a fairly large screen. Plus there is more below the fold.
    - esperent 6y ago
      Wow, that's very different from what I see.
twic 6y ago
I used to get Wired in print in the late '90s, and i can tell you, Wired was the print equivalent of Wired.com now! Pages and pages of ads before the contents, and then each article would usually be one or two beautiful full colour pages, before a 'continued on page 94' which took you to the remainder formatted as cramped commieblock-looking text at the back - which you got to by skipping over a few dozen more pages of ads.

freediver 6y ago

Similar to https://www.google.com/search?q=mattress https://www.google.com/search?q=mattress where 100% of all the content you see there is an ad (turn off your ad-blocker just to witness the monstrosity). Isn't this a direct insult to intelligence? And where and when do you draw the line?

mehdix 6y ago
You're right, by turning off my ad-blocker, my mobile screen was fully covered with ads. What constantly worries me however, is what happens when most visitors use ad-blockers? My guess is, a war would be declared against current web standards, where users can still modify DOM and remove unwanted content. Edit: reword for clarity.
esperent 6y ago
There isn't much difference with adblock on or off for this page for me (using Chrome on Windows). With adblock off, there are three obvious ads on the top right of the page, search results on the left. With adblock on, these are gone. In both cases, the top of the search results is a map with a few shops listed, and under this are normal search results. Repeating this on mobile, the ads are moved inline above the map. They take up about 50% of the screen. That is a bit intrusive. However, I have muscle memory that automatically scrolls down a bit after searching and to be honest, I would not have even noticed them if I wasn't looking. I don't know where the the 100% of content being ads claim is coming from. Perhaps it's different in different regions? I'm not trying to be an apologist for Google here, by the way. However, when it comes to intrusive ads there are far worse offenders (although perhaps not when it comes to behind the scenes data collection, which is a bigger issue).
- freediver 6y ago
  Here is what I see: https://imgur.com/a/OLSWA3K https://imgur.com/a/OLSWA3K As far as I can tell pretty much everything on that screen (including map results) is an ad. That's 100% commercial results on a fairly large screen. Plus there is more below the fold.
  - esperent 6y ago
    Wow, that's very different from what I see.

twic 6y ago

I used to get Wired in print in the late '90s, and i can tell you, Wired was the print equivalent of Wired.com now! Pages and pages of ads before the contents, and then each article would usually be one or two beautiful full colour pages, before a 'continued on page 94' which took you to the remainder formatted as cramped commieblock-looking text at the back - which you got to by skipping over a few dozen more pages of ads.