Doubtful as they would just keep pushing the ad's as that's the mentality now. Companies with good products sell themselves and dont need such shoddy tactics as their goods sell by word of mouth...
Q-6
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Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
And they wonder why people use an ad blocker???
- Thread starter romanof
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Q-6
What are examples of web content that you pay for right now? Not counting any video/music/etc streaming services.
You are much more tolerant than I am. One of the things AT&T did when destroying DirectTV was to replace the screensaver with ads for Pay Per View movies. Dropped it.
Time is precious. Why should women have to watch commercials for men specific products, or visa versa? Or baby products when the kids are gone? Or all of those pharmaceutical ads for diseases you don't have? That's what my doctor is for.
I pay for the NY Times (which annoyingly began hitting even its subscribers with ads) and am a subscriber at Ars Technica. I also regularly send money to NPR and Wikipedia. I pay to have the ads removed here (there used to be a much more active private community, but these days it's generally about removal of the ads). It all adds up to about $10/month. But I realize it's ultimately a losing battle.
If I pay and still see ad's I cancel and move on. Sooner people wake up the better, problem being most are comatose to such matters and meekly accept whatever is dished out to them...
Q-6
Yeah, I almost rage-quit the NYT right then and there when I first saw ads in the app. Part of the issue is that I'm paying for my in-laws to have it delivered to their house, which is even more upsetting because I'm paying these guys $500/year instead of the $50 I'd be paying for digital only. I absolutely agree with you in principle, but I think my situation illustrates that today's model is unsustainable. I don't think NYT is showing me ads to further line their pockets - I think they're in crisis mode.
Again, I don't know what the answer is. I'd pay more for an ad-free digital tier, but I'm not sure how much more, and I don't think today's market can sustain what it takes to employ actual journalists on purely an ad-free basis, and of course the ad-supported side just continues its slide into more obnoxiousness. It'd be interesting to know the financials behind MR - people talk about how obnoxious the ads and tracking are here (I pay the $25 to avoid it), and this is a very active site. I'd be surprised if arn is making much money at all once everyone is getting paid. If that's true it just goes to show that it's impossible to 'do it right' and still make any money, which is a shame.
I would like to recommend 1Blocker.
Yes, it is a small subscription and yes, it is only for Apple devices.
But it is an all in one. With a Firewall to block In-App-Trackers and a full-YouTube-Adblocker. And no problems with Apples private relay.
Using it for years.
Yes, it is a small subscription and yes, it is only for Apple devices.
But it is an all in one. With a Firewall to block In-App-Trackers and a full-YouTube-Adblocker. And no problems with Apples private relay.
Using it for years.
I use BitDefender on my Mac, PC, iPhone and iPad, its TrafficLight plugins on Safari and Chrome really keeps you locked down.
You need to take the rest of my reply into context.
By "fine" I mean I can deal with them/ignore them, accept them as a cost of free content hosting.
I don't like it but as someone who's seen the costs of hosting and bandwidth provision I can accept that ads are needed for free content.
But when they start stealing information, tracking me, being obnoxious with spawning pop-overs, pop under windows, etc. (i.e., today's reality) then sorry... I'm blocking it. And I do run ad blockers both on my edge firewall and my browsers.
Good grief, my ad blocker has stopped working on YouTube and it seems to be worse than free-to-air TV at this point!
- A 2-minute ad for what appeared to be a phone game
- A 15-second ad for dairy-free chocolate
- A 70-second ad for some sort of writing tablet.
That's a total of 3:25 before I could actually watch the video I wanted. I'm not interested in any of those products, and none of the ads were skippable. At least with TV the ads are short and have the potential of keeping your attention, but spending more than a minute slogging through the features of the game and tablet was enough to bore me silly.
- A 2-minute ad for what appeared to be a phone game
- A 15-second ad for dairy-free chocolate
- A 70-second ad for some sort of writing tablet.
That's a total of 3:25 before I could actually watch the video I wanted. I'm not interested in any of those products, and none of the ads were skippable. At least with TV the ads are short and have the potential of keeping your attention, but spending more than a minute slogging through the features of the game and tablet was enough to bore me silly.
Much as I hate google, I eventually paid for it.
I realised I spend more time watching YouTube both for work related educational content and hobbies/entertainment than I do Netflix, appletv, disney+, etc. - and I pay for them.
So I now pay for YouTube.
Same. I have stopped subscribing to Netflix, disney+ and Apple One and now pay only for YouTube premium. 😛
Would you say it's better than Wipr? I feel like Wipr is like an "Apple approach" as in "set-it-and-forget-it" type of thing, but there's no information anywhere about which lists it uses. I'm assuming it's a variant of EasyList, but who knows?
I want to use Private Relay but it NEVER works. Every network I join, even cellular, says "not supported". I don't know what's going on. I guess it could be NextDNS, but it's not set to block any Apple services.
This happened on my iPad when a link opened up a YouTube video in Safari...I couldn't skip the ad. I noticed I could skip the ad after five seconds if I turned off content blockers (from the address bar). It was the same ad both times too.
I tried this a few more times with other videos/ads and had the same results. Looks like YouTube is now making the ads non-skippable if they detect you're using an ad blocker.
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In the context of all the above, I tried an experiment for few days. Nothing scientific, just a short test each day.
My usual routine is to wake up, make a cup of coffee, then peruse the news for the day - which is actually for the yesterday. No social sites and seldom even ordinary news outlets, unless some happening/disaster/coming event is in progress.
For my test, afterwards I tried to remember what ads that I had seen. I run the usual suite of blockers so I get far fewer ads than are shoved down the pipe, but I allow them on favorite sites that I use and want to support.
The result is that I not only don't remember any advertisers, I don't even remember seeing the ads. After a lifetime of avoiding such, my psyche has been trained (and by now, hard coded) to skip anything that is not the topic of the site. And that long predates the Internet, going back to mags and newspapers. I will say that it did not apply to hobby magazines - I would always look at the ads in them, since those pertained to my interests.
I can't be the only one. I suspect that the barrage of crap is "evolving" an Internet clientele that will make even the current useless junk even more, well, useless. Eventually companies will have to realize that their money is just being dumped down the drain - won't they?
Now, the requirement for support of a free Internet is a totally different topic. Don't have an answer for that.
My usual routine is to wake up, make a cup of coffee, then peruse the news for the day - which is actually for the yesterday. No social sites and seldom even ordinary news outlets, unless some happening/disaster/coming event is in progress.
For my test, afterwards I tried to remember what ads that I had seen. I run the usual suite of blockers so I get far fewer ads than are shoved down the pipe, but I allow them on favorite sites that I use and want to support.
The result is that I not only don't remember any advertisers, I don't even remember seeing the ads. After a lifetime of avoiding such, my psyche has been trained (and by now, hard coded) to skip anything that is not the topic of the site. And that long predates the Internet, going back to mags and newspapers. I will say that it did not apply to hobby magazines - I would always look at the ads in them, since those pertained to my interests.
I can't be the only one. I suspect that the barrage of crap is "evolving" an Internet clientele that will make even the current useless junk even more, well, useless. Eventually companies will have to realize that their money is just being dumped down the drain - won't they?
Now, the requirement for support of a free Internet is a totally different topic. Don't have an answer for that.
No. Absent firm, regulatory guardrails, companies operating under this economic system always manage to find a way to impose their presence — unsolicited, without consent, and antisocially — into the field of awareness of anyone in its path. That’s the racket.
At present, guardrails are either absent or cosmetically limited in efficacy.
Advertising is being overdone everywhere. I haven’t bought a newspaper in decades. I haven’t listened to commercial radio for years. TV shows are so loaded I haven’t watched a TV show in weeks. T-Mobile gives me Apple TV, Netflix, and Hulu for free, and yet in the last month we maybe watched three or four things. I used to watch YouTube a good bit but my use has really slacked off because of unrelenting ads. Podcast advertising is getting bad now so I’m dumping shows. My web browsing is dropping way off. And you know, I’m happier and I don’t miss it.
Maybe overloading your product with cheap advertising is not the best long term business model.
Maybe overloading your product with cheap advertising is not the best long term business model.
That is an under statement along the lines of "The world is getting a little bit hotter." Like you I do not and have not watched ad TV in this century. Back in my working days, I would drive all day between calls, listening to favorite FM classical stations to pass the miles. Now, ALL broadcast radio media is nothing but a solid stream of advertisements interrupted occasionally by bit of entertainment. I don't understand how any of them have any audience at all. Tuning out ads is one thing - and I do it well - but after they are removed, there is almost nothing left. So why listen?
However, I have noticed a major diminishment of billboards. A few years back, those huge LED screens on gigantic pedestals were installed all over town, but recently I noticed that they were gone - torched off at the base. Apparently, that form of visual ads did not work out. Wish that would happen on the Net.
My main paid streaming service is YouTubeTV, and I make full use of their "unlimited DVR" feature; when I watch, say, the 6:00 news I don't turn the TV on until 6:20 or so, the cloud DVR is recording it, and I start watching from the beginning, then tell Siri/AppleTV to "skip ahead 4 minutes", adjust ahead/back 15 seconds (if required) every commercial break, and by the time 7:00 hits, I'm caught up and have watched only the news. This is a particular godsend during an election year!
And, yes, the commercials are getting ever-thicker. I used to be able to watch a 2-hour morning news show in 1 hr 35 minutes (ie 25 minutes of commercials), now it only takes me 55 minutes (1 hr 5 minutes of commercials).
And when YouTube started getting really aggressive with the commercials, I just clicked on the "Shorts", which have no ads, but after a couple months of doing that, YT doesn't even show me the "Shorts" anymore (I use Swizztube (App Store) for the longer videos).
And, yes, the commercials are getting ever-thicker. I used to be able to watch a 2-hour morning news show in 1 hr 35 minutes (ie 25 minutes of commercials), now it only takes me 55 minutes (1 hr 5 minutes of commercials).
And when YouTube started getting really aggressive with the commercials, I just clicked on the "Shorts", which have no ads, but after a couple months of doing that, YT doesn't even show me the "Shorts" anymore (I use Swizztube (App Store) for the longer videos).
now there’s even advertising at the service station whilst fueling up the car.
and what gets me is after one makes a purchase online there comes the email or sms asking ‘how did we do?’ and ‘how likely are you to recommend us to your family and friends’. ‘is there anything we could do better?’. ‘on a rating of 1 to 10, blah blah.
i love the delete’ button 😏
and what gets me is after one makes a purchase online there comes the email or sms asking ‘how did we do?’ and ‘how likely are you to recommend us to your family and friends’. ‘is there anything we could do better?’. ‘on a rating of 1 to 10, blah blah.
i love the delete’ button 😏
That isn't new around here. Years ago a Walmart station put in new pumps with led screens. (Just the one station, not the four others in town, for whatever reason.) As soon as the gas started flowing, on came the video ads. No problem with that, since no one has to look at the screens, but the volume was absolutely ear stunning. They could be heard clear across the parking lot (BIG) to the front doors of the main store. A cell phone could not be used while pumping.
I quickly changed stations, but apparently most people weren't bothered or Walmart didn't care because they stayed at that volume for months. They are long gone now, replaced by silent ads that are static rather than videos. And I don't even see those.