In the first fifteen years or so of the Web, a lot of the content was paid for by ads. Over time the ads got more plentiful and more intrusive. So people started to use Ad-blocking programs like Adblocker Plus, which is what I use. That got rid of the giant ads and annoying pop-ups.
For sites, that meant they weren't getting as much ad revenue. Which for most of them was pretty much the only way they were getting paid since people weren't going to buy subscriptions. So webmasters thought, "How about if we coerce people to not use ad-blocking programs!" On Comic Book Resources for instance they offered you the choice to either buy a subscription to some service or they would simply cut you off from reading their list of 25 Facts About Spider-Man's Penis. How could I live without that knowledge?! Or some newspapers would only let you read say 5 articles before they would force you to buy a subscription.
Lately other sites, like large newspapers, demand you either turn off your ad-blocking software or pay a monthly fee to "whitelist" the site. Even stupid Yahoo! mail has gotten into the act of demanding $3.49 a month to not bombard me with ads.
The problem is that it becomes the old death of a thousand cuts. $3.49 to Yahoo, $4.99 to the Washington Post, $5.99 to Comic Book Resources...it all starts to ad up after a while--pun intended. And what am I paying for? To not look at ads I don't care about?
I get it: sites need money to function. But also I'm poor. If the choice is not to read your content or pay you $4.99 a month, I'll choose not reading your content. I guess I could just turn off my ad-blocking software, but have you considered that maybe I have it for a reason? Because your ads are annoying, perhaps? How about making your ads not so intrusive? Not popping up or taking half the screen, maybe?
Anyway, I guess if you have plenty of money to burn you can pay all these monthly fees. Or if you enjoy ads maybe you'll just let them show ads. I think I'll just find some other sites to visit.
And this isn't counting all the other things to take your money: products (of course), political campaigns, GoFundMe campaigns, Kickstarter campaigns, and so on. There's just so many ways to lose your money online. Since a lot of my blogger buddies and Facebook "friends" are authors I try to support them when I can, which is another $2.99 or more per book. It can get overwhelming when you have limited means. Which is another reason not to pay to not see ads.
1 comment:
I so hear hear you. We already pay for phones, internet, cable, Netflix. The list goes on. Some sites are so obnoxious. Ads that blink, popup, appear in the middle of text, flashing. I use Facebook purity on my laptop mostly because I found the trending topics too distracting and it got rid of those. It's a good program, and lets you customize what you want to block.
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