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Google is trying Contributor, which allows you (the user) to spend a few dollars per month to remove ads while still benefiting the sites you visit. They're try

Google is trying Contributor, which allows you (the user) to spend a few dollars per month to remove ads while still benefiting the sites you visit. They're trying to get buy in by showing the amount of money you're giving to each site. For example, my local newspaper got 4 cents from me today because I read an article about a bridge closing. But besides getting people to pay, Contributor is facing a problem with sites using multiple ad networks. The Onion, for example, is both participating in Contributor and continuing to run ads from other sources. So if I turn uBlock off for their site, I see the "Thanks for being a contributor!" message (instead of one ad) right under two giant ads.

pen2l 11y ago
I'm not a 'contributor' yet (but I like the idea... and I DESPISE ads, so I will look this 'contributor' thing), but I have to say, the "Thank for being a contributor" message seems too redundant (and corny). I want as little distractions as possible, I wouldn't want to be seeing the gratuitous thank you messages filling up the space that ads used to -- please just use it for content, or just leave it blank.
- healsdata 11y ago
  You do get an option of what to display as the contributor. The message is the default, but there's a transparent option, as well as an option to show cat pictures instead of ads. But it is very muted and I very rarely note it is there. Here's an example: http://imgur.com/28jjUjr http://imgur.com/28jjUjr
lewisl9029 11y ago
Thank you for bringing this up. I haven't heard of Contributor until now, but I'm curious as to how the technology works. Would privacy extensions like Ghostery interfere with the collection of visit statistics that would determine the distribution of your contributions?
- healsdata 11y ago
  It is served just like any other ad from Google, it just shows a "Thank You" message in place of the ad. If Ghostery prevents Google ads from working, it would also disable tracking for Contributor. When I first signed up, I had to reconfigure uBlock to allow ads from these Google networks so I could then see the contributor block instead of ads.

pen2l 11y ago

I'm not a 'contributor' yet (but I like the idea... and I DESPISE ads, so I will look this 'contributor' thing), but I have to say, the "Thank for being a contributor" message seems too redundant (and corny). I want as little distractions as possible, I wouldn't want to be seeing the gratuitous thank you messages filling up the space that ads used to -- please just use it for content, or just leave it blank.

healsdata 11y ago
You do get an option of what to display as the contributor. The message is the default, but there's a transparent option, as well as an option to show cat pictures instead of ads. But it is very muted and I very rarely note it is there. Here's an example: http://imgur.com/28jjUjr http://imgur.com/28jjUjr

lewisl9029 11y ago

Thank you for bringing this up. I haven't heard of Contributor until now, but I'm curious as to how the technology works. Would privacy extensions like Ghostery interfere with the collection of visit statistics that would determine the distribution of your contributions?

healsdata 11y ago
It is served just like any other ad from Google, it just shows a "Thank You" message in place of the ad. If Ghostery prevents Google ads from working, it would also disable tracking for Contributor. When I first signed up, I had to reconfigure uBlock to allow ads from these Google networks so I could then see the contributor block instead of ads.