I bought a couple shirts not too long ago… it is just a skinned page of Neatoshop
The Neatest Stuff on Earth https://www.neatoshop.com/
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Something I recently learned about is this Basic Attention Token (BAT), which is a kind of online currency like bitcoin, but it is suppose to work of the Ethereum block-chain and it deals specifically with having online advertisement that is less obnoxious, more pertinent, and preserves privacy. It’s still at the proof-of-concept level with the public, and not much else is known about it, but it appears that much of the ad selection algorithm is done locally on your machine instead of at a centralized location, like at some google server farm. Anyhow, it still seems that there are still many rabbits to be pulled out of the online advertising hat in terms of ways of doing it.
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When I tried that, the majority of web sites did not work. All I got was a web page telling me to turn javascript on as the site required it.
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Then you’ll need to choose to run script if you want to use that site. That is the default in browsers (and has been for over 20 years). No one is making you use the site though. Only a fringe element turns off all script when browsing the net so folks don’t write sites with them in mind and haven’t for a long long time.
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I am commenting from the perspective of a developer. I do back end development and dev ops. Front end developers just copy their libraries into the source and push it. Its a messy way to operate and dangerous because having lots of code means lots of vulnerabilities.
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Newer, more scalable sites are always heavy on JS because the entire application is built on the browser. The server only supplies data via APIs, and most of the data goes to the client in a single dump when the session is created,
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I think part of the confusion on that is the growing number of places that do subscription and. Whether patreon/donation/subscription as an additional option not as a replacement for ad dollars. The additional dollars coming from something like that can (in theory) relieve the pressure placed on ad dollars. Allowing people to push back a little bit more on their ad companies. While allowing those who want to go kick in.
Back in the day, when BB was weathering the last storm of online advertising that wasnt so much a thing. Subscription and donations meant pay walls and/or the expectation of no ads. But the last few years have seen a much larger group of sites simply add that in as a new option. For a site like Boing Boing it would potentially only mean more revenue and more options. But I don’t think the approach for that is settled yet. You see a lot of pseudo pay walls. Some content is only for donors. Special articles, behind the scenes what have, members only episodes, newsletters! (how is that a thing again) to incentivize it. And most of those places I visit that do that have the same ad problems I see everywhere else.
I couldn’t say if it’d be a good move here or anywhere else but it’s a thing to watch. But it might be what people are on about here. Keep doing things as you are. But add a way to toss money in the hat, see where it goes.
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Well, I would expect not to be sent ads if I paid for a subscription. Otherwise, why bother if I’m going to be monetized like a sheep anyway?
Tested offers subscribers members only content on a regular basis.
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Only because the technology underlying the platform. If I had a tech that would instantly strip all adds from pages of the magazines and news papers that I read I would use it.
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Never, ever copy code from a library straight into yours. I never do. I sometimes write libraries for functions I need.
Because from the horses mouth you’ve heard that’s not a viable business model. Though you do see pay for no ads don’t pay for ads plenty. Its all hybrid models, there should be one, or given the size a few, that work at places like Boing Boing.
More pie in the sky realm the added money from folks tossing cash in the hat could potentially let publishers have the leeway to put pressure on advertisers to make the ads not suck. But that’s back towards industry/ecconomy wide trends.
The standard cable model is pay and ads. But we don’t see the pay part because its part of the cable price. Newspapers were traditionally subscription based with ads to fill it out. Its actually far more usual than ad only or subscription only. The only purely ad only old media I can think of are: Broadcast TV who get a fantastic subsidy in the form of (limited) monopoly on broadcast spectrum. And very small, usually not very good magazines. Why expect it to work online if it never really worked anywhere else? Same too ad only?
YEAH and that’s not being monetized. That’s just pseudo pay wall. Incentivize pay in, as in traditional marketing. Personally I don’t like it much. Mostly cause I’m a big fan (you may have noticed) of the the whole open, public good aspect of media. But it can work. What I like a bit better is the approach that Max Fun takes (as much as I’ve pointed out their model has limitations). Subscription there gets you PBS style premiums. Shirts, tote bags, at least once lovely a set of steak knives. Physical goods work just as well as an incentive, without walling off content that might be better in the open (and no its not important that jokey pod casts be out in the open). But of course in the current environment that only takes them so far. So you also see them doing the members/donors only content. They keep it minimal though, the occasional special episode. Behind the scenes stuff.
The current environment is actually kind of interesting. Most venues seem to do best by combining multiple different revenue streams, often in unexpected ways.
I feel like you’ve never lived in a small town. When demon ads are how you find out who’s open and serving what on Easter they tend to gain a little utility.
Or worked in any roll that was close in anyway to how money comes in. Go work a place that operates purely on word of mouth. Then watch how your paycheck is half what the guy down the road is making. #gladimleavingtheplacethatwontadvertise.
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But that’s exactly the thing. When it comes to adds its all about the context. People rarely object to stuff they find relevant (or even potentially relevant). Same thing with with ads on web sites. If you wanna run your business based on ad revenue, you walk the fine line between relevant and spammy, interesting an annoying. You simply need to curate the stuff you put in front of your readers. What’s not sustainable is a business model in which media content providers rent out 50%+ of their website’s real estate to the 3rd party.
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I pointed out that disabling scripts is not an option on many sites since it will break them and they will refuse to work. It’s not 1996 and pure html any more.
Probably the next iteration will be that sites will refuse to serve you if they cannot identify you via facebook or google, trace you and spam you. You are already not far from that on cell phones, which make the lion’s share of traffic and advertising today.
I am guessing that you don’t do front end development. Its just normal in that business to download zip files and extract them into /static/ so they are loaded from the same server as the javascript. Everything gets distributed as source code, often minified. Its a mess and the people doing this stuff have enough inertia behind them that they won’t change fast.
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Nah. I make user scripts and plugins. I rely on Google’s CDN networks; they’re pretty fast when it comes to loading jquery.
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Ok? Don’t use those sites?
You realize you’re not 99.999% of the market of those sites, right? They aren’t going to cater to the fringe Richard Stallman-esque crowd normally.
The same people I know personally that browse the web with no JS turned on think social media is useless and don’t understand why anyone uses or wants Facebook or Twitter.
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That, on the other hand, is awful. 
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Most js on a site is there to monetize you.
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I don’t think that is true. That isn’t why it is on gmail or twitter, for example. It is there to do things like on the fly updates. I suggest you go look at what jquery and more recent frameworks are doing.
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Even if they were, so what? No one forces you to use a site that is “there to monetize you.” Boycott it. Leave.
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So it’s ad copy, presented as blog posts. On Boing Boing.
Well then.
