Yes! Perfect.
1 Like
Yup, the blog link is where it’s at. (except for the times when the article writer forgets to put the ‘jump’ in, so you get the full mile-long article showing in the list 
)
I’ve never understood the sheer effort many sites go to to prevent articles showing in chronological view on the front page. It’s not just BB, many similar sites seem to had decided the same.
6 Likes
That’s actually what I meant: because ad-funded businesses have been a thing for as long as anyone’s been alive, we assume it’s a settled historical question. But it’s not! The idea has only been kicking around for one turbulent century, and plagued by existential threats for much of that time.
The only industries that ever thrived on ad revenue alone are broadcast TV and radio, when they controlled a near-monopoly on the public’s attention, which inevitably came to an end. Internet companies have yet to prove they’re sustainable on ads alone – apart from Google and Facebook, the smart money is on “no”, and again, Google and Facebook only make money because they have monopolies.
So, yeah, the experiment has been running for decades, but the case is far from proven.
7 Likes
Malware is just as common in banner ads.
2 Likes
Better than malware or pages that look like the Vegas strip.
5 Likes
And the “more” links Cory and others put in to force you to come to the site where the ads live?
2 Likes
Turning off JS makes the web more peaceful.
3 Likes
It also completely breaks many sites written since 2006.
4 Likes
Speaking of buying a much needed Boing Boing shirt or two, store.boingboing.net, the StackSocialStuff i assume, has no BB shirts. Can someone tell me, is shop.boingboing.net still active in selling or does it just look like it is?
2 Likes
I think the issue is how much of that money ends up where. For Google’s case I’ve heard they’re among the best for passing shit on to content providers. But much of that money is still going to Google. In large part running ads can bring surprisingly little money to a website. And vast amounts of money can be skimmed out of the system by sketchy 3rd parties. Google amasses that level of money per user in large part because they handle such a large volume of the ads online, and because they’re at the top of the money pile. By per click, and placement rates for web based ads are still quite small on a per site/placement basis. Especially compared to rates for traditional ads. This has been one of the major hold ups on TV networks transitioning to streaming. Even with a monthly fee + ads model (as used in basic cable) the money generated still doesn’t match the revenue coming from pure ads or fee + ads on broadcast or basic cable. Even as those distribution methods see their audiences rabidly shrink. Part of that is companies unwilling to pay higher ad rates in that venue, but there’s other things at play. End result is still less money to the content creator.
OK? Sort of? Advertising/promotional budgets are part of the cost of doing business. And they have to be accounted for in pricing. But stating it like that makes it seem like its as simple as advertising is bad and useless and everything would be cheaper if it ceased to exist. But its not at all that simple. We’ll take my current work environment, the restaurant business, as an example. Margins are low in food/bev. Like 10% if you’re luck low. And advertising can be a significant expense. Even just low level advertising in local media, I think our local paper charges around $5k for a quarter page 1 week ad placement (and they only publish once a week!). So its tempting to cut out advertising.
So here’s what happens. No advertising reduces you sales volume. At which point prices need to go up to maintain the margin (remember close margins so not maintaining it means closed doors). With good advertising, your sales volume goes up. Which allows you to lower prices and make the same or better margins. You get bigger discounts on bigger buys of ingredients and liquor, more people means more sales of high margin products (booze) that compensate for over all lower price etc. And that’s a business with very simple advertising dynamics.
Overall the price of ads is already factored into most everything. When you see a big budget movie. At say $250m, we know the marketing budget is at least half that again. If it doesn’t double up the cost of a movie. And yet these large pictures do no, on the whole, cost more per ticket. Or per DVD. Than cheaper movies or movies with less marketing budget.
If prices go up, so be it. Once again, advertising your customer never sees, because the last ad pissed them off, isn’t just worthless, it’s silly and stupid, bordering on pathological.
You keep telling us how the advertisers have it so rough, yet you still have not presented a compelling reason for anyone to care all that much. Guess what? Advertising existed before the internet was anything more than science fiction, and still does, outside of the internet.
If it all comes crashing down in another dot.com bubble, that’s just how it is. The world is NOT responsible for monetizing your dreams or business plans, and reality won’t massage itself to fit anyone’s whims.
3 Likes
Yup, I use it selectively. Works on news sites like the one folks here have pointed out - wired.com.
I need a convenient JS toggle on my toolbar. (An idea for an extension)
When it comes to revenue inflation, I think entitlement creep is one of the main causes.
Many execs and ceos these days are all scrambling for that golden parachute. They want to be the guy with the private island, not the guy with the big house at the end of the block.
4 Likes
I think FlashBlock has a js toggle button. I’ve been using NoScript for a long time tho.
2 Likes
I block ads because of unethical behaviour from advertising companies. Some animated ads give me headaches. There are enough of these to justify blocking all ads, for the sake of my health.
I also use adblocking to block other non advertising annoyances, like youtube or news comments.
2 Likes
I think you’ve completely misunderstood my point or have simply decided I’m a good target for your “ads bad system EXPLODE” polemic.
If advertising online ceases exist that likely means venues like Boing Boing going away. These people. Real working people. With homes and families and what have. Make their living this way, in part or in total. You’ve never been frustrated by a site you like closing due to lack of funds? Never been annoyed by rising pay walls cutting you off from things you enjoyed? Or interrupting or breaking the link based structure of the internet? Or locking away important information from the public?
The issue with online advertising is largely down to a horrible skew in where the funds go. Most of the money sits with scammers and scumbags or with large advertising networks (Google as the major example). The the companies buying the ads see little point in paying more because in large part online advertising of the basic sort does not work. Content creators and publishers often find it difficult to to scrape usable funds out of the system because of low ad rates and the fact that the vast majority of those funds end up sitting with the middle men in the ad networks. At the same time the explosion in online advertising bucks, along with audiences moving online have created an incredible financial pressure on an awful lot of traditional media organizations.
Newspapers are the classic example. Ad buys and subscriptions are down in traditional print papers, which is a huge sink on over all operating funds. Which should be fine. The internet means most papers have vastly more readers than they ever did before. But even with more ads, being seen by more eyes. All that online activity is still earning those papers less money. Even with added pay walls and subscriptions. Which has lead to papers failing. Massive layoffs. The advent of shit like advertorial. And the erosion of important things like science reporting.
This is basically the vaunted “disruption” that the tech scene is always going on about. Its pitched as some liberating, user/public friendly thing. But what it usually boils down to is upending established business and economic models to concentrate a fixedish amount of funds in more limited hands. The disrupter’s hands. And its increasingly clear that the negative consequences of that increasingly fall on the public, workers, smaller businesses.
Internets advertising right now (and basically since its inception) doesn’t work. In large part because it puts off users, and can’t even hold up its end of the bargain on funding material. But its not going to crater, nor would things be neccisarily better with out it. The internet without open publication and ad based funding, or something to directly replace it (as in public funding for TV) would largely look like it did back in the old AOL and Prodigy days. Subscription based walled gardens Advertisers will have to pay higher rates. Ad networks will have to crack down hard on bullshit, intrusive or infectious ads, and find ad models that actually work for advertisers. Publications will need to hold their ad networks to higher standards. Regulators will have to do something about clear exploitation and bad actors. And users need to be more active about pushing back on the bullshit. Ad blockers are an entirely valid way to do that. Personally I’d prefer to save that option till I feel it is necessary, clearly you’ve already hit that point. But most user simply ignore that shit as a usual annoyance, or don’t even realize it could be dangerous.
The thing to remember is these things take time. You’re talking about a complex evolving section of the economy. One that we’ve only had for 20ish years in earnest. You can not stamp your feet and say “fix it now” and expect it all to magically work. You can not expect it to work exclusively for your benefit, because there are a lot more people with a lot more at stake then just you. Properly controlling an ad environment for a publication of any size takes staff. The complexity of online ads means lots of staff. You need inside sales reps, tech people to build out the system, QC people to check the ads. The more people you serve, and the more ads you run the more people you need. In the case of most online publishers and independent websites this would likely mean more people in the ad department than their entire current staff. Paid with funds they don’t have and can not spare. This exact dynamic is driving the phenomenal consolidation of media operations online and off. If one site alone can’t make it work, tie 20 together under a parent with other businesses and you can. Even in all of that. Shit will slip through. Just like any other subject. In education bad teachers slip through. In publishing heinous or crap books sneak out. Sometimes your ad free, subscription based membership credentials get stolen and now your credit card is for sale is Azerbaijan. The best surgeon can still leave a clamp in a guy sometimes. In the real world things are never perfect. So we come up with systems to account for that. The crap teacher can totes get arrested for diddling that kid. The surgeon has malpractice insurance. Your bank nukes the card when sketchy charges show up.
The world is not responsible for funding your dreams of digging trenches either. People deserve to be paid for the work that they do. Whether its something you or I would consider “work” or consider “dreams”. In the case of online advertising. Some one is making a hell of a lot of money, but often it is not the people who did the work that you are currently enjoying.
5 Likes
Which is why I advocate for publishers to accept things like Flattr. New media, like Jesse Brown’s Canadaland pulls nearly 20,000 (CAD) a month via Patreon. Shit-stirring hatemonger Ezra Levant gets 50k/month from Patreon. Clearly, there is a market for user-funded media.
5 Likes
Guess they need to find a better business model then. Either way, it isn’t my problem.
I have a friend who is a painter. She really feels like she should be able to make a living as a painter. She can’t. I feel sympathy but that is also not my problem.
Just because you think really hard that making buggy whips should be a viable career, it doesn’t mean it is.
Your five or so long paragraphs of screed, each time you reply, make me think you have skin in the game here. You are arguing waaaaay too hard for casual interest.
You know what? I was on the Internet in 1989. I was in the first and second dot com booms.I worked them at some of the first Internet startups and then places like Microsoft. I actually prefer the Internet of 1991 to what we have now. I hate Facebook. I hate ads. I actually liked Usenet, email lists, and MUDs. So boo hoo if people can’t sustain their huge corporations off of my back eyeballs in the future.
6 Likes
Exactly as enso notes above, sorry, you’re the one with the polemic here. Your justifications simply are insufficient, in my eyes, and nothing you can say will change that.
I. Am. Not. Responsible. For. Your. Success. Or. Failure. Nor do I care to be, whether you are an individual or corporation; my list is full, and websites in general aren’t on it. Nor did I go on any “polemic” about advertising being “bad”, or “evil”; I merely defined the rules where I will personally allow advertising to me. In fact, I also don’t watch TV, largely for the same reasons. Nor did I “stamp my feet and say ‘fix it now’”; you won’t be able to cite even an approximate quote, so so don’t bother trying to go there. Nor am I responsible for content creators (not) getting paid by the outlets they choose to market their output to; I generally pay for my content, and my conscience is clean. And no, malformed ads are NOT acceptable “currency” to pay for content, no matter how strongly you insist otherwise.
BTW, “these things take time” works better if it hasn’t been over a decade.
2 Likes
For the record, while identifying ad copy as such is a worthy goal, that policy in your TOS is as useful a guide as any statement of the form “I am not lying to you,” and if (please note heavy emphasis on the conditional) y’all were lying about that, there’s really no way for anyone to know better.
And for the negative consequences of hidden advertising to manifest, you wouldn’t even have to be knowingly deceiving your audience. More broadly, a website that accepts ad money, sells products, and is written by people with numerous side gigs (novels, paid speaking engagements, other websites, etc.) can never be exempted from scrutiny for bias, because it swims in the same currents as everyone else in commerce, and is affected by them. How likely is it that you’ll run an article saying “buy this particular crapgadget because it’s cheaper and better than the one we sell over at our Stack page?” That’s not your fault and it doesn’t mean you collectively have some deep ethical problem, but it is the reality.
tl;dr: that policy is a nice sentiment, but any of your readers who’d care should pretend you never said it.
1 Like
