The Internet Is Killing The Internet

Swank Force One wrote: So i guess the answer is: I'm not. Will i bitch on the internet for free? Absolutely.

And therein lies the problem. Exactly my point.

SVreX wrote: Bottom line is that internet users need to pay for internet content. Free speech ain't free. How we get there is the question.

The things that are useful - places to sell things or spend money - they get paid by charging fees. That works.

I am an open source contributor to a number of projects. When I download something useful that someone else has created, I donate a few bux. That works.

There are many hobby or professional forum-type sites that are self-supporting by members or supported by businesses AS A FORM OF advertising. Some have targeted ads for people who pay for the ad directly (not by the click) and that model works.

Frankly, the rest of internet content is mostly a worthless pile of junk, rehashed stolen content, regurgitated myths, propaganda and the functional equivalent of slide shows about that trip to Paraguay that no one would actually pay for. You can tell you found it by the annoying ads.

Swank Force One wrote: My solution: ISP pays for content, not me. (Granted the money will still be coming from me, so i'm still paying in the end.) They can treat it like cable TV "Look at all the places you can go with your money!".

How would that work?

Your cable company chooses which content you get (based on the money they can make).

So, are you suggesting that your ISP should limit which sites you can visit based on which ones they can negotiate profitable contracts with?

If you have an internet start-up website, you would get no exposure to anyone until you are big enough to have value to the ISP's and can negotiate a good contract with them?

That ought to work well to kill the entire process.

There is only 1 format that is acceptable to the user- free. That doesn't work.

So, we get a E36 M3ty experience, because we are cheapazzes and unwilling to pay for anything better.

Right, Swanky?

SVreX wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: My solution: ISP pays for content, not me. (Granted the money will still be coming from me, so i'm still paying in the end.) They can treat it like cable TV "Look at all the places you can go with your money!".

How would that work? Your cable company chooses which content you get (based on the money they can make). So, are you suggesting that your ISP should limit which sites you can visit based on which ones they can negotiate profitable contracts with? If you have an internet start-up website, you would get no exposure to anyone until you are big enough to have value to the ISP's and can negotiate a good contract with them? That ought to work well to kill the entire process. There is only 1 format that is acceptable to the user- free. That doesn't work. So, we get a E36 M3ty experience, because we are cheapazzes and unwilling to pay for anything better. Right, Swanky?

I'm not the expert here, it was just a spitballing idea from someone who has never worked in the industry.

Paying for expensive cable packages sucks too, but at least it's not overrun by ads, and it's intuitive and effective to use.

But yes to your last part. That's why the most expensive car i own was purchased for $3000 and probably why i hate cars.

GRM adds usually don't bother me as most of them are catered to us "people."

Idiocracy is happening, not just with the internet; but, society as a whole. I feel horrible for my children and the people they will have to deal with.

the real money isn't in front end ad services, its in back end analytics.

forget ad-block. add Ghostery to your web browse

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

SVreX wrote: Bottom line is that internet users need to pay for internet content. Free speech ain't free. How we get there is the question.

The things that are useful - places to sell things or spend money - they get paid by charging fees. That works. I am an open source contributor to a number of projects. When I download something useful that someone else has created, I donate a few bux. That works. There are many hobby or professional forum-type sites that are self-supporting by members or supported by businesses AS A FORM OF advertising. Some have targeted ads for people who pay for the ad directly (not by the click) and that model works. Frankly, the rest of internet content is mostly a worthless pile of junk, rehashed stolen content, regurgitated myths, propaganda and the functional equivalent of slide shows about that trip to Paraguay that no one would actually pay for. You can tell you found it by the annoying ads.

What GPS said.

The internet is only good for mostly-free stuff. It has no actual value in being paid for.

Having said that, I know some local forums that earn decent money. I advertise my fuel business on one because it allows me to directly target my market. Forums are great for that.

Make no mistake, just like TV being a dying business model, the internet will have to self-right itself with the ad issue. One hilarious thing is that "artists" , "entrepreneurs" , and "entertainers" have to understand that while we have greater access to their products, with that greater access and the deluge of these people inherently lowers the value of their products.

I still argue that bits are free in a sense. People need to get paid for their work, but after that, once its digital, I have a hard time assigning value to something... especially when so much digital work is already created for free. Its the 80/20 theory. The last 20% of perfection takes 80% of the work/time. If I can get an 80% job for free and its "good enough", I'll probably go with that. There are things in life I will pay damn good money for, entertainment on the interwebs is not one of them.

I use the 80/20 in regards to porn. Eh, good enough.

Appleseed wrote: I use the 80/20 in regards to porn. Eh, good enough.

Quoted for the truf

madmallard wrote: the real money isn't in front end ad services, its in back end analytics. forget ad-block. add Ghostery to your web browse

This is a brilliant bit of software. I just installed it and it made surfing the Google News links virtually pain free. And I get some kind of perverted satisfaction seeing all the things it s blocking on each site / page. (Sorry GRM, Yes it is blocking the tracking stuff on your site)

dean1484 wrote: I understand the need for advertising but when the adds actually prevent me from getting the content I want they have failed. Not only am I irritated with the site but the product or service that is being advertised has now pissed me off and i will go out of my way to black list it. Advertisers are walking a slippery slope between product promotion and irritating there audience to the point of putting there advertised product in a negatively associated experience. Why the internet is going to kill the internet.

This is also what's driving viewers away from TV and into the arms of companies like Netflix that offer ad free programming.

Swank Force One wrote: Paying for expensive cable packages sucks too, but at least it's not overrun by ads, and it's intuitive and effective to use.

Actually, I'd argue that cable TV is overrun with ads and annoying crap. Remember what watching Living Dead was like before it became a runaway hit? Now, you can't see 10 minutes of the show without there being a commercial break. I don't watch the show anymore because of that. I tried watching it via on demand, still too many commercials. Now I watch it on Netflix. No commercials. Bliss.

Back in the day before you whipper snappers were born cable TV was a commercial free zone. The argument was you paid for the service so no commercials were needed like free television where commercials were abundant. Now, commercials even while you pay exorbitant fees for cable TV. There lies the way of the Do-do, extinction. Check out how many people "cut the cord" i.e. no longer subscribe to cable in the last two years.

mad_machine wrote: I do.. but reading news on the phone makes it quite clear that there are a lot of really badly written ad scripts out there

Oh, you have no idea. I have personally seen

• ad scripts that broke all the site javascript
• ad scripts that loaded up more than 1 meg of extra code just to show you an animated gif.
• ad scripts that broke the site layout
• ad scripts that kept the site from loading
• ad scripts that opened up massive security holes in the site
• ad scripts that actually infected site visitors with malware.

All of those on sites using "reputable" ads and ad networks.

I understand wanting to make a buck, but any ad network a site owner doesn't completely control is a ticking time bomb on their site.

So what do most sites do? double down and ad more. Insanity.

This thread reminds me... I need to GTFO of here and go hiking.

dean1484 wrote: I use to read news on line. Google, Yahoo and others were very good for letting me scan the stories and the various categories I was interested in. Then I could click on what I wanted to read and with little problem I could actually read the article. But as of late I have been noticing that it is all but impossible to actually read any kind of news story on line. Problems are: - Adds are placed with in the news story listings making scanning the real news difficult. - When you click on a news story adds or surveys are either blocking the story or take so long to load that I just don't read it. The latest thing is for some sort of add or survey to pop up and it will not let you read what you want to read unless you take the survey. Sorry but that is just not going to happen. Google / Yahoo you loose. You really need to do a better job of filtering your content as it is killing your brand. Here is a news flash Google, Yahoo and other information sites. Your killing your brands content with all the other crap you are trying to stuff in front of us to the point that your sites are now useless. I am seriously considering going back to the old school news paper. I actually purchased one at lunch today and it was so nice to be able to actually read an article about something with out all the internet crap getting in the way.

Sounds like you need adblock, lol. I recently used a computer without that on there after using only my work pcs (which block ads) and my home pc to read the internet and it was a terrible experience.

madmallard wrote: the real money isn't in front end ad services, its in back end analytics. forget ad-block. add Ghostery to your web browse

ok .. for the luddite that is me what will Ghostery do for me that Ad-Block doesn't ?

Ad-Block seems to have gotten rid of all the ads except for those on my yahoo mail … with I can get rid of by changing my settings from "show by newest on top" to "show by unread" … though it is a PITA to have to pick that each time I check my email … (can't save my settings choice

From one Luddite to another...

Ad-block prevented ads from showing, but Ghostery also stopped their tracking scripts from operating in the background.

My surfing is faster now.

I was a little surprised to see how many tracking apps GRM is using.

Appleseed wrote: The click-bait on THE WEATHER CHANNEL website defies the imagination.

well.. with all the shows on the Weather Channel now.. I am not surprised. How soon till they become the next MTV and people start going "I remember when you got the forecast from the weather channel?"

> I was a little surprised to see how many tracking apps GRM is using.

Me too. I knew about Google analytics (I put it in) but not the others.

Thanks to this thread I just installed Ghostery. The internet is both among one of the best and worst things man ever invented.

mad_machine wrote:

Appleseed wrote: The click-bait on THE WEATHER CHANNEL website defies the imagination.

well.. with all the shows on the Weather Channel now.. I am not surprised. How soon till they become the next MTV and people start going "I remember when you got the forecast from the weather channel?"

I've totally given up on the TV version of TWC … no useful info … at least not in timely fashion … I still use them on line … their forecasts are as "good" as anyone's … good in quotes because weather forecasting seems to be the only profession where 10% accuracy is good enough for a pay raise

Tim Baxter wrote:

mad_machine wrote: I do.. but reading news on the phone makes it quite clear that there are a lot of really badly written ad scripts out there

Oh, you have no idea. I have personally seen * ad scripts that broke all the site javascript * ad scripts that loaded up more than 1 meg of extra code just to show you an animated gif. * ad scripts that broke the site layout * ad scripts that kept the site from loading * ad scripts that opened up massive security holes in the site * ad scripts that actually infected site visitors with malware. All of those on using "reputable" ads and ad networks. I understand wanting to make a buck, but any ad network a site owner doesn't completely control is a ticking time bomb on their site. So what do most sites do? double down and ad more. Insanity.

I have a few test machines at work and while not part of my job description I like to see how things break. I once clicked on one of those stupid click bait articles that goes like "He found a dirty hobo sock that smelled like dead shrimp, you'll never guess what he did next." The site had so many ads load and pop up before the actual content did that it crashed the brand new iMac. I tried it on a Windows 7 machine and it just bogged it down to the point of hard restarting it. I can only imagine what those do to handheld devices.

wbjones wrote:

mad_machine wrote:

Appleseed wrote: The click-bait on THE WEATHER CHANNEL website defies the imagination.

well.. with all the shows on the Weather Channel now.. I am not surprised. How soon till they become the next MTV and people start going "I remember when you got the forecast from the weather channel?"

I've totally given up on the TV version of TWC … no useful info … at least not in timely fashion … I still use them on line … their forecasts are as "good" as anyone's … good in quotes because weather forecasting seems to be the only profession where 10% accuracy is good enough for a pay raise

But if you watch their forecast on TV, then check their website, and finally compare it to the Weather Channel app, you'll find you now have three completely different forecasts.

In reply to dean1484:

the nice thing is, i get to have more control over the methodology my habits are tracked.

so i dont mind allowing the trackers that GRM typically has to load because my interests lining up with things that GRM has are not a big deal to me to worry about profiling me for.

you could get the impression I'm a car guy just by looking at me, so what have I lost in this case?

In fact, it really streamlines the sites i chose to support by allowing ads. I have an ethical problem with blocking all non-pop-up ads on some sites, and now those i do allow to run are alot more relevant to things i might actually spend money on

petegossett wrote:

wbjones wrote:

mad_machine wrote:

Appleseed wrote: The click-bait on THE WEATHER CHANNEL website defies the imagination.

well.. with all the shows on the Weather Channel now.. I am not surprised. How soon till they become the next MTV and people start going "I remember when you got the forecast from the weather channel?"

I've totally given up on the TV version of TWC … no useful info … at least not in timely fashion … I still use them on line … their forecasts are as "good" as anyone's … good in quotes because weather forecasting seems to be the only profession where 10% accuracy is good enough for a pay raise

But if you watch their forecast on TV, then check their website, and finally compare it to the Weather Channel app, you'll find you now have three completely different forecasts.

true … but I can also check in with 3 or 4 other online weather sites and get different forecasts on each … so I just go with the one that's easiest for me to use … and as E36 M3ty as the TV version is to get pertinent info, the online version is still fairly easy to use

In reply to madmallard: Read "Future Crimes" ...book came out this year. Really eye opening!