LWN advertising update
LWN advertising update
Posted Sep 3, 2007 20:30 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)Parent article: LWN advertising update
I find it extremely sad the increase of ads in quality site like LWN.
What would you say if apt-get displayed an ad each time you install/update
a package ? Why is there a difference of standard ?
Posted Sep 3, 2007 20:36 UTC (Mon)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link] (14 responses)
Posted Sep 3, 2007 20:42 UTC (Mon)
by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Sep 4, 2007 3:07 UTC (Tue)
by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)
[Link] (3 responses)
[Intervening comment]
Writing free softwares, developing a linux distribution etc. cost money. Is it that hard to understand?
LWN is a direct service. No third party pays for the
work of Jon, Rebecca, Forrest, or Jake (did I miss
anyone?) It's enough work, and under such time
constraints, that it's got to be a full-time job. The
only way to keep LWN a quality site is to pay the editors
a living wage. The money must come either directly from
its readers or from some source that depends on the
readers.
That means subscriptions or ads.
It's apparent there aren't enough subscribers to do the
job. (And shame on the parasites. [1])
I'm certain Jon would be delighted to find some other,
non-advertising, income for LWN, but that's a catch-22. [2]
So, if you object to the very thought of in-text ads [3], buy
some side-line ads [4] for your favorite cereal, football
team, whatever. Maybe even your Linux-related services.
If enough of that shows up, in-text ads won't be a question.
[1] I'm not talking about the casual readers. I
mean hard-core LWN readers who
aren't subscribers. You know who you are.
[2] Supporting LWN makes sense only for Linux players.
But income from a Linux player would give the appearance of
a conflict of interest: not good. That sort of blows away
the whole idea.
[3] And don't get your knickers in a twist. The ads are
turned off by default for everyone, subscribers and
casual readers alike. You gotta ask for them.
[4] I once asked Jon to allow higher subscription
rates, not for additional privileges, but purely for those
who'd like to pay more, (relatively) painlessly. He
declined, and suggested buying a sideline ad instead.
Posted Sep 4, 2007 3:15 UTC (Tue)
by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Sep 4, 2007 3:25 UTC (Tue)
by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 7, 2007 7:08 UTC (Fri)
by ekj (guest, #1524)
[Link]
That's not the point though. I don't want LWN to be one of those trashy sites where you need to go to great lenghts to remove misfeatures and crap that is purposefully added by the site-owner to make it half-usable.
LWN is much too classy for that, and should remain so.
Posted Sep 3, 2007 20:44 UTC (Mon)
by elanthis (guest, #6227)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Sep 3, 2007 21:05 UTC (Mon)
by jordanb (guest, #45668)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 6, 2007 7:28 UTC (Thu)
by rhertzog (subscriber, #4671)
[Link]
Well, that's not 100% accurate. Some big companies pay the subscription for some of them. That's the case for me, as HP is offering LWN access to Debian developers.
That's also the case for Bill Allombert (ballombe)... that's why I didn't like his comment, he dismisses the work of the editors and their right to get some money out of it. That's not correct.
As for the ads, I don't like in-text ads either.
Posted Sep 4, 2007 0:12 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (2 responses)
Paying with attention wasted on entirely unproductive stuff like ads is
I didn't know the project leader level let you turn off ads: even
Posted Sep 6, 2007 14:20 UTC (Thu)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 7, 2007 14:25 UTC (Fri)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Did I mention how violently I hate ads enough times yet? Flashing and
(Obviously I'm extreme in this respect.)
Posted Sep 4, 2007 3:32 UTC (Tue)
by viro (subscriber, #7872)
[Link] (2 responses)
For what it's worth, no Windows (pirated or not) here, I see no
As for the costs... I have no problem paying with patches, paying for
Trying to conflate all kinds of behaviour into "freeloader" label,
Posted Sep 4, 2007 12:12 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (1 responses)
(I recall a series of letters in the Economist a few years back, in response to an article about guerrila marketing which had stated that the average citizen of some country (the US? the UK?) saw three thousand `commercial messages' a day and that of course this should be increased. There were a stream of letters saying no! there are too many! ... and one from an advertising executive expressing bewilderment that anyone wouldn't love adverts no matter what their shape or form and stating that he had always watched adverts for *pleasure*. Some people just don't think like the rest of us.)
Posted Jun 28, 2011 6:50 UTC (Tue)
by spaetz (guest, #32870)
[Link]
This, being online media, is no problem at all to implement (in contrast to say the printed Economist edition).
This site costs money, and those running it are looking for the best, LWN advertising update
least intrusive way to make enough to keep it going. Is it that hard to
understand?
Writing free softwares, developing a linux distribution etc. cost money. Is it that hard to understand?LWN advertising update
ballombe notes:
Cost of operation
I find it extremely sad the increase of ads in quality site like LWN.
What would you say if apt-get displayed an ad each time you install/update
a package ? Why is there a difference of standard ?
No, it's easy to understand, but is an invalid comparison.
Writing software, developing a distribution, &c. is
done by volunteers, or those who get paid for it by a
company.
The volunteers (e.g., much of Debian) do it at their own
pace, and are free to get money elsewhere.
The paid workers are hired by companies (e.g., Red Hat, IBM)
which make their money indirectly from the developer's
effort.
Cost of operation
[3] And don't get your knickers in a twist. The ads are
turned off by default for everyone, subscribers and casual
readers alike. You gotta ask for them.
Oops, I was reading too fast. On second look, I see that
non-subscribers get them unconditionally.
The end of the third paragraph:
Cost of operation
As with Google ads, those running with Javascript disabled will not see the ads.
On third thought, anyone can avoid them by turning
Javascript off.
Or more practically, by getting adblock and blacklist *.intellitxt.com which gets rid of these hugely annoying ads with no detrimental effect whatsoever. (infact sites will load sligthly faster)Cost of operation
To people who are into free software instead of Free Software, yes, it probably is hard to understand. These are the same people who probably also run Windows on a different partition or machine (pirated), run commercial Linux software like many games (pirated), and have a great many gigs of music and movies (pirated). "Paying" isn't something they're going to welcome, no matter what the cause is, or even whether they can afford it. And hell will be raised if they have to be inconvenienced by ads in something they'd rather not pay for in the first place.LWN advertising update
You know, the fact that everyone posting here about how we don't like in-text ads is a subscriber means that we are all already PAYING for LWN. None of us are "freeloading" in any way. Like I said, these ads won't affect me much as I'm a subscriber and won't see them, but I would be disappointed if LWN were to gut its future ability to attract subscribers by shortsightedly choosing a nearly universially hated advertising technique and driving all the casual readers away.LWN advertising update
> You know, the fact that everyone posting here about how we don't like in-text ads is a subscriber means that we are all already PAYING for LWN. None of us are "freeloading" in any way.LWN advertising update
Paying with money is fine, it's renewable.LWN advertising update
not. Attention is a strictly limited resource (for some of us, extremely
strictly limited).
though I can't afford it I'm now considering an upgrade. There's very
little I won't do to avoid ads.
No subscriber has to see ads. Only casual readers do. You won't see ads as long as you pay, even at starving hacker level.LWN advertising update
You do see ads at non-project-leader level, just not so many.LWN advertising update
blinking and over-text ones make me navigate away instantly, but *any* ads
I'll pay to get rid of.
Pathetic. If you are unable to ejaculate your indignation betterLWN advertising update
than that, I'd suggest another venue. Lavatory wall or political
meeting, for example.
reason to run a commercial distro on any local boxen (pirated or
not), no pirated music or video (if I want to watch or listen, I'll
bloody respect the author's copyright, TYVM, and I sincerely doubt
that digging through the piles of garbage on p2p networks is anywhere
near a feasible way to find something I wanted anyway) and I have
no hesitation in blocking all ads I can block or going elsewhere if
I can't.
CDs, DVDs (and vinil back when it had been there) and paying for
subscription in case of LWN. If it's not enough, the other party can
raise the price; I'll either pay or drop the matter entirely and do
without. If the price includes lending my brain to advertisers, it's
definitely "do without".
pretend that it all goes together and use that to support a baseless
claim ("there is no valid reason for avoiding all ads") is a tactics
worthy of politician. And execution in this particular case would
be piss-poor even for one of those...
Actually it's a tactic worthy of an advertising executive.LWN advertising update
LWN advertising update