Jimquisition: The Adblock Episode
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The converse to that is why did I and others buy print copies of things like Penny Arcade, Megatokyo, or DVD collections of the Angry Video game nerd all full of stuff available for free. I like the material, the stuff's in good quality, and it come without intrusive ads even if I don't have a net connection. Why buy a book when the library is free, or go to a movie when one's are on the TV right now, or pay $60 for a video game with so many free ones out there? Competing with free is difficult, just not impossible, but resisted because it means you have to strive to be good, not just decent.KisaiTenshi said:
And in many ways, think about where we are. So much gaming news is really just more marketing. This game has this feature is less news than a commercial to say that if you like this feature, buy this game. We watch and make big deals out of trailers which are pure advertising, and reviews are independent advertising, just ads that aren't promising a glowing sales pitch. We come here for things that do all the things ads are supposed to do, so if we're blocking other forms, that a sign the company behind them is missing something.
Im sorry but just because you say its the "price" doesnt make it so.Redd the Sock said:
Just because you say its "stealing" doesnt make it so.
Using addblockers and other tools to protect your system from unwanted malware is infact not against the law so what you think is theft and what is not has absolutely no meaning whatsoever.
The only counter argument you seem to have is a silly "nu-uh" wich honestly doesnt really make for a compelling argument.
Come back and call people criminals when they actually break the law. Till then I would suggest you stop accusing people who use addblockers of "stealing" content.
Oh and btw.
If the "price" was indeed having to watch the adds then the Escapist would need a Eula or something similiar you would have to agree to before you can watch the videos on here. You know.. a legal agreement between them and their "customers"
Whats this? Such a contract does not exist?
Well shave my legs and call me grandma... you have even less of an argument now...
See thats what i meant "no strings attached". I dont sign anything before I watch the videos, so the Escapist has no legal claim here... no matter how much you say otherwise.
But all this could be circumvented if the Escapist would pay more close attention to the adds they host. Its their job to make sure that the adds dont contain malware, dont crash browsers or videos and dont make me want to rip out my ears. If they host an add that makes me want to not visit their website then they are doing it WRONG.
The escapist doesnt owe me anything, and i dont owe them anything. I cant demand that they cater to my interests, and they cant demand that i "inconvieniece" myselfe for their sake. I dont do that for EA.. i wont do it for the escapist.
Think about how many people pirate content to make it free for them. That comes back to the circular logic in this thread.Redd the Sock said:
Not watching/letting the ads run = Not Paying for the Content = More convenience = Content creators get paid less.
Counter-argument
Buying Merchandise = Supporting the Creator = Creator gets less than 20%, Post office and shipping companies make all the money.
That's why so many "free content" types like to sell T-shirts. It's a low risk investment. Getting books or discs made can cost a few thousand dollars, and can only be justified with preorders. There's also risks of being charged back (which happens with kickstarter too.) Every person I've talked to about Kickstarter wishes they set the reward pledges that ship items higher because many of them lost money on the shipping of physical items. Think about that the next time people light the torches and decide to mob someone for not being expedient on their kickstarter.
Paywalls and Advertisements are mutually exclusive to each other. Everything else is complimentary and should not be used as an excuse to block the ads or not pay for the subscription.
Honestly, if you guys want to see behind the curtain, there's not a lot of interaction between the contributors and moderators. Most of the comment threads that explode, the mods don't find out until it's appeared several times in the Mod Queue, or in some cases, we see something on the front page that looks like it should have an explosive comment thread. We're just regular users, for the most part, so a lot of what we see is the same way most users see it.IceForce said:
In this case, Jim had mentioned this video coming on Twitter, and another mod had said one or two comments in passing about it. Nothing was set in stone, but it was pretty much common sense to suggest that there'd be a loose amnesty in place for discussion about ad blocking as a practice, seeing as it was the topic in question. We didn't really know what the content of his video would be, so we couldn't really put anything set in stone in place, as that would require a fair amount of time going between the mods and the community manager.
Generally speaking, the editorial staff at the Escapist will not infringe on what a content creator makes. As Jim mentioned in an earlier video, when faced with a non-PG-13 contented video, instead of changing his video, they put up an age gate. Because of that, comment threads for those pieces of content tend to have rules adjusted on the fly by the Community Manager [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/DrStrangelove] and the moderation team.
The appended section to the opening post was written collectively by the mods who were awake and alert when the video went live. We discussed options, spoke about the best possible solution we could put together (in under an hour, as from the time we first got a mod online to the time that edit was made was about an hour from video going live) without having a Code of Conduct rewrite. The result, what you see, is our best shot at making this thread a reasonable place for discussion about ad blocking as a practice, without unduly circumventing the purpose for the rule.
As the opening post suggests, there's no universally agreed rule as to what is or isn't acceptable, so there's going to be some disagreement, even among mods. So, because of that, we clearly link the appeals form, and suggest everyone who feels their moderation was out of line use it. Mistakes will, inevitably, happen.
So, in short, we put together the best we could under the circumstances.
Media companies, specifically those in the magazine industry, shot themselves in the foot by offering online content for free when the internet started getting big. The scramble to generate revenue led to the only option they had left - putting ads on their website, which most consumers find distasteful and/or distracting.
The real issue is that the content that websites like The Escapist offer is not particularly special and their place can be filled by any number of communities due to the open nature of the internet. If The Escapist went away, everyone would just move somewhere else, much as people did when sites like 1UP essentially folded. And if all the media sites folded, people would still form internet communities to exchange their thoughts on games, reviews, etc.
The more nefarious issue I see is that websites and even print are moving to native advertising where they essentially give PR companies direct access to their content systems and they can feed in stories promoting their brands. The New York Times published one about the "success" Samsung had in sponsoring the Oscars that was clearly a PR piece, yet was not labeled as an advertisement in any way. Sites like Escapist will not doubt move this way, if they haven't already.
If you want a prime example of native advertising, here you go: http://www.today.com/health/man-loses-56-pounds-after-eating-only-mcdonalds-six-months-2D79329158
The real issue is that the content that websites like The Escapist offer is not particularly special and their place can be filled by any number of communities due to the open nature of the internet. If The Escapist went away, everyone would just move somewhere else, much as people did when sites like 1UP essentially folded. And if all the media sites folded, people would still form internet communities to exchange their thoughts on games, reviews, etc.
The more nefarious issue I see is that websites and even print are moving to native advertising where they essentially give PR companies direct access to their content systems and they can feed in stories promoting their brands. The New York Times published one about the "success" Samsung had in sponsoring the Oscars that was clearly a PR piece, yet was not labeled as an advertisement in any way. Sites like Escapist will not doubt move this way, if they haven't already.
If you want a prime example of native advertising, here you go: http://www.today.com/health/man-loses-56-pounds-after-eating-only-mcdonalds-six-months-2D79329158
Cable TV charges for channels (paywall), and yet still plays advertisements.KisaiTenshi said:
Both are costs for content (in fact, Cable TV was initially billed as "Paid-For, ad-free TV".)
So no, the two models aren't mutually exclusive.
It happened for a short period of time for a very few amount of users in a few countries of the world. Yahoo gets billions of page views and tens of if not hundreds of billions of ads served a day, and only an estimated 300,000 malware ads were served before the ad got detected and removed from the system. That's.............less than a thousandth of one percent of the ads ONE DAY had served a malicious ad. You probably have a greater chance of dying in a car crash, are you going to stay at home today?Jonte said:
I never said it would never happen, but it shows how miniscule the chances are of it happening on legit sites. And note some important details. The infection rate was only 9%, indicating the vast majority of the small fraction of people that got served this malware did not get infected. Why? Because it was blocked by a virus scanner, firewall, or because their computer was updated so the Java exploit was already patched. So competent users like you and me weren't even at risk. So what are you afraid of?
Fact is, it's really hard for malicious ad servers to sneak bad ads into the systems of the major networks, and if they managed it it's not for long.
A bit off-topic, but I would personally appreciate it if Jim didn't use pictures of actual poop (4:40). >__>
Also, can anyone explain to me what the the shrimp is supposed to symbolize please? I've seen it used so many times in Jim's videos, but I'm still unable to pinpoint a meaning to it.
Also, can anyone explain to me what the the shrimp is supposed to symbolize please? I've seen it used so many times in Jim's videos, but I'm still unable to pinpoint a meaning to it.
They are choosing to transmit it. The site does not have to respond to my request. That is their decision.KisaiTenshi said:
So, why would you expect a 100% non-blocked ad delivery rate?KisaiTenshi said:
Why is it "theft" when people block ads, but not when people ignore them?
No. So why would you expect that every time you deliver an ad it won't be blocked?KisaiTenshi said:
If you are paying for cable, you are paying to receive free ad-supported OTA broadcasts aggregated with cable-company-owned content that costs them nothing extra. Your subscription does not go directly into anyone's pockets but the cable company, they have fixed costs for putting those channels on the basic tier. If you want the "good" ad-free channels like HBO you'll have to pay the subscription fee that goes directly into HBO's pocket. The basic tier alone is not a paywall, it's just whatever "value" the cable company can give away for free by having your service active. This goes back to Analog cable when "blocking premium" channels meant the cable company came by and put a filter on your line, and took away your HBO descrambler. Today they can a-la-carte the entire system but it would mean the end of all specialty channels. There are entire channels that are not carried on cable because the cable company doesn't feel they have enough audience appeal. Likewise Carriage Disputes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_disputeTopazFusion said:
But sure, if you consider paying for basic service a paywall, then you also will insist that paying for internet access is a paywall to every site on the internet. There is no relationship between your internet service provider and the site's you access. There is no relationship between you paying for cable, and those individual channels on basic service.
Magazines and Print publications you can subscribe to, or you can buy them individually. So the ads are subsidizing the printing cost. Subscription fees and individual purchases pay the employees. Some magazines, particularly female-targeted ones, are made entirely of ads, because that's exactly why they are buying them (ever wonder why there are so many in waiting rooms?) People also read them in the library, or stand around a bookstore and read them there. That's the "Free" model for print.
Let me ask... do you really think anyone pirates print magazines?
Hence why paywalls and ad-supported content is mutally exclusive. You can not make the same content free and ad supported while putting the same content behind the paywall with ads, because the subscriber gets no benefit from subscribing. You either have no paywall, or you go full paywall.
You get stuff like this when you don't go full paywall:
http://www.jensense.com/2011/06/02/how-newspapers-are-earning-money-from-ads-visitors-cannot-click-sabotaging-their-cpm-rates-too/
There's often Terms of Service rules for ad networks that prohibit putting ads on pages that are private, password protected, or unreachable with a web spider. If your site is entirely subscription based, and you throw ads on top, you're unlikely to have enough a high readership that all but the worst ad networks would drop you.
As for how this relates back to the ad blocking discussion, the analogy to ad blocking for TV is using your own PVR, not the cable companies, so you can fast forward through commercials. The channel you watch may prohibit fast forwarding, and many Cable company owned VOD services disable it at the request of the broadcaster.
Likewise blocking ads in print would be like having someone glue blank pieces of paper over every ad in a newspaper or magazine... rendering it unusable in a library, or unsalable if you did it at the bookstore.
Terrible analogy. I have to pay to have the right to enter a movie theatre. There is no such contract with a website that voluntarily sends content to my browser without any pre-existing contract.Thanatos2k said:
Again, you haven't answered the question. What am I taking, and who am I harming by doing so?
What lengths I'll sink?Thanatos2k said:
You are the one avoiding rational debate, and whenever faced with direct questions go off on tangents and personal attacks. I was not making a semantic argument.
Again, putting words in my mouth. I never said advertisers were evil. I said they are parasites. Why is it that you transformed the word "parasites" into "evil"? It seems like you want to argue with things that people aren't actually arguing.Thanatos2k said:
Accusing me of theft is a very serious accusation. What is it that I have stolen?
That's absolutely not true.KisaiTenshi said:
There are constantly new security exploits found, which have not been patched by system updates or detected by antivirus software. I don't know what to say if you really believe that system updates and antivirus are ahead of all the exploits.
Even when exploits are publicly discovered, the patching of operating systems and software can lag months behind the exploit.
Wow, that's incredibly lax of Jim. From what he wrote here, it sounded significantly more formal than a random Tweet to some random mods.NewClassic said:
Did none of the moderators feel the need to flag this issue for the attention of someone higher up? From what you wrote, it sounds like this never left the confines of the moderator's circle. This seems like a pretty serious oversight.
Why does that matter? You were just expecting that nobody expected a 100% sell-through rate. So why would anybody expect a 100% ad-delivery rate?KisaiTenshi said:
What does this have to do with anything I've said?Aardvaarkman said:
Personal insults are not appropriate or allowed here.Aardvaarkman said:
Blocking ads is not theft. I never said I blocked ads. I was just discussing the concept of blocking ads. Yet you feel free to call me a "horrible person" and accuse me of theft for discussing the issue at hand? That's not very nice behaviour.
Since when has Jim cared about people complaining? And why should he care?TopazFusion said:
Also, why would it have to be "heavy"? He could have briefly mentioned the subscription benefits, rather than relegating it to a couple of seconds of a slide.
What?TopazFusion said:
When did I complain about Pub Club awareness being at the forefront of a site content video? I asked for exactly the opposite - more promotion of the Pub Club. From reading this site, you'd barely know what it was. It's basically never referred to by the writers and content authors of this site, even in passing.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that I'm trying to have it both ways from.