Current Events > These news websites are losing their heads over ad blockers

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/7/3/AARjV_AAE3Rd.jpg

Im not sure how you expect news organizations to exist without some sort of income stream.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/7/4/AABFc1AAE3Re.jpg

The ones where they straight up ask you which ad blocker you're using is really scummy.

AlephZero posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/7/4/AABFc1AAE3Re.jpg

Is that Jimmy Wales, wikipedia? He deserves to have made a fortune off wikipedia but didnt

Hospy posted...

Im not sure how you expect news organizations to exist without some sort of income stream.

I was on a device without ad blocker. You can literally see an ad for Prizepicks in the background.

sites cost money to operate. those sites can either receive funding through subscriptions or via ad revenue. pick one.

Hospy posted...

Im not sure how you expect news organizations to exist without some sort of income stream.

I mean I don't, but I also don't get how news organizations expect us to be okay with ads taking up more than half of every page, autoplaying obnoxious videos and straight-up hijacking the page at random, among other things.

Let them seeth, fuck their malware.

Whatever you do, don't subscribe to any of them.

I did that with the Washington Post once and by the end of the day they spammed my inbox like 10 times.

LeoRavus posted...

Whatever you do, don't subscribe to any of them.

I did that with the Washington Post once and by the end of the day they spammed my inbox like 10 times.

Holy cow paper newspapers must be really going down hill. Who reads them anymore?

I get that they need the revenue, but all those ads just aren't the solution. Someone very smart has to figure out something better.

I read newspapers through my library. The library pays for the subscription (using my tax dollars) and anyone with a library card has access. Maybe something like that would work for news sites.

brestugo posted...

I get that they need the revnue, but all those ads just aren't the solution. Someone very smart has to figure out something better.

I read newspapers through my library. The library pays for the subscription (using my tax dollars) and anyone with a library card has access. Maybe something like that would work for news sites.

you still read paper newspapers? prob most people don't

Lol I literally just close the site and move on if they require me to unblock ads, if only because I can't be bothered.

Sometimes, I can get around the "you've got an ad blocker" screen by stopping the page from loading before it comes up. If that doesn't work, I just find another site.

I wouldn't use an ad blocker at all if websites would stop making them extremely obnoxious. I held off on doing it on gamefaqs for a long time but ever since fandom took over the ads have made the site way too annoying to use

*installs a paywall bypass browser plugin*
Sorry not sorry.

froghunter75 posted...

I wouldn't use an ad blocker at all if websites would stop making them extremely obnoxious. I held off on doing it on gamefaqs for a long time but ever since fandom took over the ads have made the site way too annoying to use

Are there any downsides to using adblocker? isn't is rumored that youtube may crack down on them?

Smallville posted...

Are there any downsides to using adblocker? isn't is rumored that youtube may crack down on them?

The only real downside is sometimes you gotta manually clear out the filters and update them cause sites attempt to block them. Youtube has already been cracking down on them, but who cares. Get Ublock Origin and never have to deal with malicious and annoying ads.

Smallville posted...

Are there any downsides to using adblocker? isn't is rumored that youtube may crack down on them?

Zero downsides for the user.
Youtube can try but it's a battle they won't win. Twitch tries constantly already.

Hospy posted...

Im not sure how you expect news organizations to exist without some sort of income stream.

The corporations will be fine. No need to worry about them.

mario2000 posted...

The corporations will be fine. No need to worry about them.

Yeah, but at the first sight of lost revenue, the employees are the ones let go.

mario2000 posted...

The corporations will be fine. No need to worry about them.

news being dominated by gigantic corporations is a problem, though. we should be supporting the few left that are NOT owned by a gigantic media conglomerate.. this is why i support the NYTimes but not WaPo.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

sites cost money to operate. those sites can either receive funding through subscriptions or via ad revenue. pick one.

They already make enough with stalker code and selling your behaviour and analytics to external parties. They dont need to display an ad to make money

Kloe_Rinz posted...

They already make enough with stalker code and selling your behaviour and analytics to external parties. They dont need to display an ad to make money

how much revenue do big sites generate from that? you seem very confident in your reply here, so providing concrete evidence to support this claim should be easy

Frankly, I just don't give a fuck how much they lose because I'm not seeing their shitty ads

Giant_Aspirin posted...

how much revenue do big sites generate from that? you seem very confident in your reply here, so providing concrete evidence to support this claim should be easy

More than enough for me to not care about blocking each and every single ad without guilt
the second Ive registered for any site my email address has already been sold to marketing spammers

Kloe_Rinz posted...

More than enough for me to not care about blocking each and every single ad without guilt
the second Ive registered for any site my email address has already been sold to marketing spammers

so you have no evidence to support your claim, it was just a gut feeling. got it.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

so you have no evidence to support your claim, it was just a gut feeling. got it.

Don't be intentionally obtuse. It's no secret that it's big business to harvest and sell user data.

Vyrulisse posted...

Don't be intentionally obtuse. It's no secret that it's big business to harvest and sell user data.

it's definitely a revenue stream, sure. but to claim that its "more than enough" to not only cover their operating expenses but also produce a reasonable profit margin without any evidence other than "this is what I want to believe" is nonsensical.

not sure why you think i am being "intentionally obtuse" here ....

Giant_Aspirin posted...

so you have no evidence to support your claim, it was just a gut feeling. got it.

Google does common knowledge need to be cited

Giant_Aspirin posted...

sites cost money to operate. those sites can either receive funding through subscriptions or via ad revenue. pick one.

What happened to free market capitalism? Shouldn't news sites having to rely on ads to survive fall into corporate darwinism?

SayHeyyShohei posted...

What happened to free market capitalism? Shouldn't news sites having to rely on ads to survive fall into corporate darwinism?

i dont advocate for 'free market capitalism' and am not a fan, tbqh. but i dont really see how this relates to what you're replying to.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

i dont advocate for 'free market capitalism' and am not a fan, tbqh. but i dont really see how this relates to what you're replying to. sites need money to operate and either get most of that money through ads or subscriptions.

Not enough people want to see ads and not enough want to subscribe. Seems like the only alternative is for the company to die.

Almost as if news shouldn't be a for profit business.

SayHeyyShohei posted...

Not enough people want to see ads and not enough want to subscribe. Seems like the only alternative is for the company to die.

Almost as if news shouldn't be a for profit business.

no doubt that gigantic conglomerates owning news media is problematic, but there are numerous problems that go along with state-controlled news as well.

CARRRNE_ASADA posted...

Yeah, but at the first sight of lost revenue, the employees are the ones let go.

Corporations will let employees go even if there is no lost revenue. There is no correlation between layoffs and people using adblockers.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

no doubt that gigantic conglomerates owning news media is problematic, but there are numerous problems that go along with state-controlled news as well.

Non profit news should be a thing

Smallville posted...

Are there any downsides to using adblocker? isn't is rumored that youtube may crack down on them?

On Chrome I did notice with ad blocker on some sites wouldn't work near as well but on Firefox they all seem to work fine.

TheSavageDragon posted...

Great journalism depends on ad revenue. We left journalistic integrity at the door a few decades ago.

Lmfao

TheHoldSteady posted...

I was on a device without ad blocker. You can literally see an ad for Prizepicks in the background.

If anything screws up along the way, sites just assume you're blocking ads, when what's probably going on is the default privacy settings of the browser itself.

That little shield thing in Firefox will tend to set off anti-adblock, and incognito mode definitely will.

SayHeyyShohei posted...

Non profit news should be a thing

NPR.
But I mean, that also relies on ads and people donating money in order to keep it running.

What happens if you block the adblock-block?

I read the NY Times for free all the time... through my library. All from my phone. No ads, either. It's just the text so it's definitely different than reading an actual paper in hand. But for the price I can't complain.

Paragon21XX posted...

What happens if you block the adblock-block?

Those are usually third-party scripts, so there's an adblock filter for it.

SayHeyyShohei posted...

Non profit news should be a thing

If people already dont want to pay a subscription for a news service what makes you think enough would choose to donate to support a variety of news networks?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Then you can stop because the days of that being any kind of actual problem are well behind us.

Tenlaar posted...

Then you can stop because the days of that being any kind of actual problem are well behind us.

There's still too many middlemen in the pile to consistently keep the drive-by downloads away.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Firefox blocks most, if not all, of those trackers, I'm pretty sure.