LWN advertising update

Posted Sep 3, 2007 20:44 UTC (Mon) by elanthis (guest, #6227)
In reply to: LWN advertising update by jospoortvliet
Parent article: LWN advertising update

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

Posted Sep 3, 2007 21:05 UTC (Mon) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link] (1 responses)

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

Posted Sep 6, 2007 7:28 UTC (Thu) by rhertzog (subscriber, #4671) [Link]

> 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.

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.

LWN advertising update

Posted Sep 4, 2007 0:12 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

Paying with money is fine, it's renewable.

Paying with attention wasted on entirely unproductive stuff like ads is
not. Attention is a strictly limited resource (for some of us, extremely
strictly limited).

I didn't know the project leader level let you turn off ads: even
though I can't afford it I'm now considering an upgrade. There's very
little I won't do to avoid ads.

LWN advertising update

Posted Sep 6, 2007 14:20 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (1 responses)

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

Posted Sep 7, 2007 14:25 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

You do see ads at non-project-leader level, just not so many.

Did I mention how violently I hate ads enough times yet? Flashing and
blinking and over-text ones make me navigate away instantly, but *any* ads
I'll pay to get rid of.

(Obviously I'm extreme in this respect.)

LWN advertising update

Posted Sep 4, 2007 3:32 UTC (Tue) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (2 responses)

Pathetic. If you are unable to ejaculate your indignation better
than that, I'd suggest another venue. Lavatory wall or political
meeting, for example.

For what it's worth, no Windows (pirated or not) here, I see no
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.

As for the costs... I have no problem paying with patches, paying for
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".

Trying to conflate all kinds of behaviour into "freeloader" label,
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...

LWN advertising update

Posted Sep 4, 2007 12:12 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Actually it's a tactic worthy of an advertising executive.

(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.)

LWN advertising update

Posted Jun 28, 2011 6:50 UTC (Tue) by spaetz (guest, #32870) [Link]

And exactly because preferences differ (some people would rather pay with "attention" than with money, while others rather cough up more money to avoid any ads), there should be options (as there are on LWN.net) between, no fee-many ads, and high fee - turn off ads.

This, being online media, is no problem at all to implement (in contrast to say the printed Economist edition).