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Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review)Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review)Posted Jun 7, 2012 21:34 UTC (Thu) by slashdot (guest, #22014)In reply to: Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) by dlang Parent article: Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review)
They could just ship AdBlock (and perhaps Ghostery) enabled by default.
But I'm not sure I like that, I kind of like the fact that millions of idiots who don't run those are willing to fund the web sites I visit, while I can reap benefits without suffering the ads and tracking.
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Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 21:42 UTC (Thu) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
Also, Mozilla makes most of their money from Google, who may not be willing to pay as much money for search if Firefox blocks all their advertisements.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 21:48 UTC (Thu) by n8willis (editor, #43041) [Link]
I believe his thesis is that if browsers switch off the firehose of free information, the remaining information -- which is the data voluntarily offered by users -- will be of higher value, and be less expensive to index & analyze. I'm not interested in arguing his point for him; that's only my attempt at restating it.
Nate
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 21:48 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
besides, some people don't like the idea of some unaccountable organization blocking their access to sites (see all the problems that come from e-mail blacklist)
AdBlock does a pretty good job (I choose to run it), but just because I choose to run it right now doesn't mean I think it should be default.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 23:05 UTC (Thu) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
Well, unlike e-mail blocking, you generally notice if something is missing from the web page, unless it has no relationship with the rest of the page, which is pretty much the definition of an advertisement.
BTW, I just tried disabling AdBlock and got assaulted, on LWN, by a text ad on the left side, a banner on top, AND a Flash ad to the right!
Not sure how people can use browsers without AdBlock enabled, I think I would go insane within hours.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 23:08 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
If you were a subscriber you could disable the advertisements and continue to support this site :-)
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 23:19 UTC (Thu) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
Yeah, so first they bombard me with annoying stuff, then they try to extort money from me to stop the discomfort they intentionally caused me in the first place.
A great way to acquire happy customers, and an awesome generator of goodwill, if you ask me.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 23:22 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
they are trying to earn money to pay the bills so that this site can remain in existence.
This site had no advertisements for many years, but costs continue to climb.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 8, 2012 1:18 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]
Your concern has been noted. Thank you for sharing.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 8, 2012 6:19 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Hint: if you're not paying, you're not a customer.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 8, 2012 11:14 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
If you find the site so obnoxious, and so lacking in value that paying for (some of) its content is "extortion", then you should probably leave.
However, your continued presence here suggests that you perceive some value. If you wish the site to remain and to keep producing content you value, subscribing is the best way to help keep it alive.
Now, if you have such a great sense of entitlement that you cannot understand the realities of operating such a site, and insist that you would never subscribe, nor would you allow ads, then you clearly aren't someone who is ever going to part with your money. In that case, any objection or opinion you have on the matter is really worthless.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 8, 2012 20:35 UTC (Fri) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
Did you ever occur to you that this site only exist due to the work of a lot of people on free software development ? That somehow free software are not bundled with ads to cater for the "the realities of doing such a development", and that developers could expect the same courtesy here without any feeling of entitlement, especially when they are subscribers ?
Jon is always claiming that ads bring very little money and yet is unwilling to part with this practice.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 8, 2012 21:02 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
every free software developer faces "the realities of doing such a development", some deal with it by having other jobs, some deal with it by running their own companies, some deal with it by getting hired to do the developement full time.
any project where they developers don't deal with "the realities of doing such a development" in some way will die when the savings accounts of the developers run out and all development stops.
Besides, and Android and iOS a lot of free software _does_ get bundled with ads to pay for it :-)
LWN advertisements may not bring in a lot of money, but they apparently bring in enough to be noticable or they would not be leaving them on. I'm sure that if someone were to offer to sponser LWN for enough money on the condition that advertisements went away, Jon would be willing to agree.
Ads Posted Jun 8, 2012 22:29 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] They actually bring in a bit more than they used to now that we have Linux New Media doing the sales for us. It's still a relatively small part of our total revenue picture, but it's definitely enough to make a difference.
Ads and the Linux New Media cookie explained Posted Jun 9, 2012 1:47 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] now that we have Linux New Media doing the sales for us. Oh, so that explains where the linuxnewmedia.com cookie is coming from. At least it isn't advertising for Microsoft. It scares me sometimes how pervasive banner ads (and the companies hosting them) try so hard to push their way onto my desktop (and into my life), but I guess that's just business. Oh well, welcome to the online world of We-Want-All-Your-Personal-Info... P.S. As I said in my comment linked above (from August 2008), and still feel this way, I do realize our editors have to make a living, and I applaud them for being creative in how to keep LWN afloat. I disabled ads some time ago, and now I'm feeling a little guilty for doing so. (I'll re-enable ads after posting this comment.)
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 9, 2012 10:45 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
Yes, it is quite obvious to me that this site exists because of free software, much like Groklaw exists because of legislation targeting Linux, Lifehacker exists because others write software, the Wall Street Journal exists because businesses are doing business, etc. etc. That reporters depend on the reported is true by definition, and so it's not that interesting. It also has very little to do with the quality of the reporting in question
This site really exists because someone takes to the time and energy to research, write, and edit the content. It's a valuable service and the quality of this site is in my opinion superior to any other site writing about Linux. To suggest that charging a subscription fee for such content is akin to extortion is just absurd.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 9, 2012 23:08 UTC (Sat) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
> To suggest that charging a subscription fee for such content is akin to extortion is just absurd.
This may explain why nobody made that claim.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 9, 2012 23:49 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
what do you call this statement
"Yeah, so first they bombard me with annoying stuff, then they try to extort money from me to stop the discomfort they intentionally caused me in the first place."
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 11, 2012 10:54 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
The OP is not complaining about having to pay to access content, but rather to have to pay not to receive ads (quite the opposite in fact).
When it is so easy to install ads filtering technology, attempt to extract money from users unable to do so can be aptly described as extortion.
And for those not blocking the ads out of respect of LWN, this is not economically viable: instead just buy an extra "starving hacker" LWN subscription, this will get more money to LWN while costing you less in the long run. Adding intermediary always increase cost.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 11, 2012 11:14 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
given that paid subscribers of LWN do not see advertisements, if he was willing to pay he wouldn't be worrying about the ads
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 11, 2012 12:18 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
This is untrue: at the lowest subscription levels, subscribers still see the ads.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 11, 2012 11:27 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>If you find the site so obnoxious
To be fair, LWN really does have particularly intrusive advertising - lots of big, colourful, animated Flash ads that make the site look kind of cheap and seedy in comparison to sites which understand the value of unobtrusive advertising.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 7, 2012 23:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
by the way, I routinely browse with both noscript and with cookies set to ask me before accepting cookies. I usually don't bother with adblock.
I find that there are quite a few times where a site doesn't work (in that I don't see an option to do something that I want to do) without enabling some of this. so many times it is going to be as invisible as blocked e-mail, unless you know that there should be something there for you to see.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 8, 2012 1:21 UTC (Fri) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
Thank you for reminding me to turn of AdBlock on lwn.net.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 8, 2012 7:38 UTC (Fri) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> They could just ship AdBlock (and perhaps Ghostery) enabled by default.
> > But I'm not sure I like that, I kind of like the fact that millions of idiots who don't run those are willing to fund the web sites I visit, while I can reap benefits without suffering the ads and tracking.
AdBlock now has an option not to block unobtrusive advertising. To put it in the context of the article, let's see if that works as well as blocking pop-up windows.
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