Adblocking... Could Patreon revolutionise the internet?


Recommended Posts

We all know who we are.  Those (barely) technologically savvy people who know what Adblock and Adblock

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was at a friend's house a few months ago and he wanted me to watch a youtube video. He loads it up and it begins with an ad. My mind was blown as I suddenly realized that youtube has always had ads (or I then assumed) and I had never seen or known about it until that moment.

 

I was happy. I will remain happy.

 

I agree... I'm happy not to receive those ads. However, would you watch them, if the alternative was to either:

1. Close Youtube down?

2. Pay $2 a month to access it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will continue to adblock all sites. Between rouge adverts, shady links, spyware/adware. Absoutely. There's nothing more annoying then autoplaying videos, full page banners that pop up when I'm reading something. Those sites get closed out of immedately. When desginers find a way to pleasntly integrate them into my browsing experincing, maybe then. I doubt that will ever happen though. There are sites I go to that look like cheap tabloids when I don't have adblocker on. I shouldn't have to be assulted with pop ups and eye sores all over what I read.

 

If the site goes down because they aren't getting my revenue by viewing ads, I won't lose much sleep and find another site to read. If the site is a small business or a site like Neowin, I'd consider subscribing, however I put enough time in here as ex staff for almost 10 years. I paid my dues.

 

And lets be honest here, who has actually clicked on an ad and actually bought something from that interaction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was at a friend's house a few months ago and he wanted me to watch a youtube video. He loads it up and it begins with an ad. My mind was blown as I suddenly realized that youtube has always had ads (or I then assumed) and I had never seen or known about it until that moment.

 

I was happy. I will remain happy.

 

I don't mind youtube ads personally. I think it's the right way to do ads.

 

I just recently installed adblock.

 

I'm a computer engineer and i firmly believe a company should be paid for the service it is providing. So why did i install adblock? The reason is all those flash ads slow down my browser so much it becomes a pain in the *** to surf the web. I don't know why it has become worse lately, It is because my core i5 750 is becoming too old? Is it Firefox/Chrome/IE? Is it flash? Anyway the flash ads and auto play video ads have totally become out of control and it slow down all the browsers i have installed to a point i had to do something.

 

It's like those **** at the beginning of legal movies on disc. They are trying so hard to sell us something that they are achieving the opposite of what their goal is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was on some website today I can't remember which ... it wasn't youtube. I was on it with Microsoft Edge. I wanted to watch a news story video but it wanted me to watch a 30 second ad first. So I closed the browser and left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree... I'm happy not to receive those ads. However, would you watch them, if the alternative was to either:

1. Close Youtube down?

2. Pay $2 a month to access it?

No. I barely watch youtube anymore anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do wanna support sites BUT 99% of time when I click on ad, its gonna open 3 more pages full of popups/ ads/ spyware/ adware/ malware/ porn/ weight-loss product/ dating site/ credit check/ insurance ads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It won't change much. People will sitll be greedy, they'll want more money and still use both ads, plus Patreon. I already see that happening.

 

Which is okay.

 

Due to this, i'll always use adblock. Even on neowin people are constantly creating posts about ugly obtrusive ads that get int he way of the content, or even redirect users to other sites. CONSTANTLY.

 

Ad Companies cannot be trusted at all.

 

Offer a way for Users/member to compensate you, instead of abusing them with ads, and appreciate it when they do. (User/member appreciation is also something Neowin should work on.)

 

 

 


I was on some website today I can't remember which ... it wasn't youtube. I was on it with Microsoft Edge. I wanted to watch a news story video but it wanted me to watch a 30 second ad first. So I closed the browser and left.

 

in their defense. the ads let you skip them 5 sec in or so, but then again thats an extra step that shouldn't be needed, especially since most of the actual videos aren't even 30 sec long themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

in their defence. the ads let you skip them 5 sec in or so

 

The site I was on wouldn't let you skip after 5 seconds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The site I was on wouldn't let you skip after 5 seconds.

 

opps sorry, i didn't read your post properly, thought you said youtube :p

you said exactly the opposite.

 

my bad my bad.

 

Ads are also the reason alot of people avoid Hulu Plus. They'd make so much more money and have many more members if they didn't put them crappy ads between the videos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will continue to adblock all sites. Between rouge adverts, shady links, spyware/adware. Absoutely. There's nothing more annoying then autoplaying videos, full page banners that pop up when I'm reading something. Those sites get closed out of immedately. When desginers find a way to pleasntly integrate them into my browsing experincing, maybe then. I doubt that will ever happen though. There are sites I go to that look like cheap tabloids when I don't have adblocker on. I shouldn't have to be assulted with pop ups and eye sores all over what I read.

 

If the site goes down because they aren't getting my revenue by viewing ads, I won't lose much sleep and find another site to read. If the site is a small business or a site like Neowin, I'd consider subscribing, however I put enough time in here as ex staff for almost 10 years. I paid my dues.

 

And lets be honest here, who has actually clicked on an ad and actually bought something from that interaction.

Agreed. Adverts slow down my pc and mobile devices, use extra bandwidth and track me when I don't want to be tracked, not to mention rogue adverts that are just downright offensive.

 

And if neowin put an 'honesty box' up, how much would you honestly put in? With some of the articles I've seen lately, I highly doubt anything more than a few pennies would go in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was on some website today I can't remember which ... it wasn't youtube. I was on it with Microsoft Edge. I wanted to watch a news story video but it wanted me to watch a 30 second ad first. So I closed the browser and left.

 

 I get this with NZ news sites. I just close it down and leave the site. I have some of neowin whitelisted, but things like facebook/twitter/Google+ i block.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was on some website today I can't remember which ... it wasn't youtube. I was on it with Microsoft Edge. I wanted to watch a news story video but it wanted me to watch a 30 second ad first. So I closed the browser and left.

This is why I continue to use Firefox+Adblock Plus. Edge has no chance with me until extensions are enabled.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure that I understand the purpose of the website, it seems like some sort of kickstarter site that offers the ability to make a monthly donation. So long as they get their monthly quota they promise not to show adverts?

I think there are better ways to solve the problem. Personally Neowin's policy of not having sound adverts or popups is a great one, as a majority of the time those are the adverts that cause people to go for adblockers. What needs to be done is the advert suppliers need to be stricter on what they allow as advertising.

I have no problem with non-intrusive adverts. It's the intrusive adverts that should be taking the blame, not the adblockers that were initially created to combat them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

System level blocking will cure all your ills, covery every browser/app on the system regardless of if it can do it on its own or not.  As far as "morality" goes, until they can 100% guarantee it's safe (which nobody can at the moment), there's zero chance it'll be allowed on my systems.  My time isn't free either, and dealing with borked systems due to malvertising isn't my idea of fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My family kept on getting viruses until one day I decided to install uBlock on their browsers, and they have not gotten a virus since.

 

I really think that crowd funding is the future. I bet a lot of content producers would be surprised at how many people would love to support them directly. The problem about subscriptions is that they are a fixed price and people won't be able to pay it, while they might be willing to pay less, like $1/month. And a lot of people would be able to do that, so it would accumulate faster than $28/month subscriptions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure that I understand the purpose of the website, it seems like some sort of kickstarter site that offers the ability to make a monthly donation. So long as they get their monthly quota they promise not to show adverts?

I think there are better ways to solve the problem. Personally Neowin's policy of not having sound adverts or popups is a great one, as a majority of the time those are the adverts that cause people to go for adblockers. What needs to be done is the advert suppliers need to be stricter on what they allow as advertising.

I have no problem with non-intrusive adverts. It's the intrusive adverts that should be taking the blame, not the adblockers that were initially created to combat them.

 

In part I agree.  Neowin are setting a high bar (as they have done for quite some time).  That said, I think the tide is turning against advert supported medium on the whole... because of just how intrusive it has become.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was on some website today I can't remember which ... it wasn't youtube. I was on it with Microsoft Edge. I wanted to watch a news story video but it wanted me to watch a 30 second ad first. So I closed the browser and left.

 

My personal favorite, you actually want to watch an ad because it's neat or catchy... and they make you watch an ad to watch an ad :|

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My personal favorite, you actually want to watch an ad because it's neat or catchy... and they make you watch an ad to watch an ad :|

The best are when you watch a 30 second ad for a 15 second clip. CNN does this all the time with their site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The best are when you watch a 30 second ad for a 15 second clip. CNN does this all the time with their site.

or you watch an ad just to have the video you wanted to see fail to play and they play another ad after it realizes the video failed

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is an interesting topic.

 

I believe the point here is quality. What content deserves my money/time/bandwidth/PC resources?

 

Does a pretty girl talking about some ###### on YouTube deserve it? Does she think she should be getting paid just because she's showing a pretty face and some cleavage? I think not.

 

What do social media "stars" contribute to in this world? What's their entertainment value? Pretty much zero, in my opinion.

 

Same goes for crappy blogs that are basically pulling info from different sources and repackaging it.

 

For professionally created content is a different story. Websites that post in-depth reviews about tech deserve to get paid somehow, as other outlets that create original interesting content do, but that's as long as their website is usable when I let them show me ads, some websites are a nightmare if you dare use them without the mix of NoScript, Ghostery and ABP, add a customized hosts file and that would be even better.

 

Even Google is dangerous for non tech savvy users, search for a software without blocking ads and the first results will be ads hijacking you to another site where you will download a malware, or just like free software that comes bundled with useless junk, just to make money, while infecting other people's systems.

 

I feel the same about entertainment in general, if people who illegally download stuff would be forced to pay for that content, what they'd really choose? I think that if we completely did away with ads, in favor of a purely paid system, most websites would be wiped away almost instantly so, in many cases, I think many website owners should be grateful that there are still so many clueless users around the world that let them ruin their browsing experience, or worse harming their devices, consuming resources and bandwidth.

 

I'm sure there are talented people somewhere in the world who are posting their work right now but aren't getting recognized because the Internet is so much overcrowded with crap that's extremely tough for them to emerge, I personally like platforms like Jamendo that let new artists, or content creators, get a break and reach a wide audience.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will always use an adblocker.. If you don't, it's a huge ######ing mess out there.. The Verge has a ######ing ad that takes up the entire half of your screen.. You have audio ads... ect.. Forget it.. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was once a website that complained I Couldn't see the naughty content because I had adblock turned on.

 

Because I was using sandboxie and a flash blocker, I turned off adblock for that page and refreshed it and OMG the popups. TONS of popups! I was sitting there just imagining some exploit kit scanning my system.

 

To think the average user goes to those sites with out any kind of sandbox, whitelisting app, adblocker, or flash blocker. No wonder peoples computers are a sesspool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.