Machina said:
The shitty ads aren't an attempt to force people to become supporters. There's no conspiracy. I know most users won't believe me (I wouldn't if I were a regular user and didn't know how stuff worked behind the scenes), but it is the truth.
Brett is responsible for the ads. If Trucks or I had responsibility we'd dial them back, but we don't, so we can't. I understand why Brett's added more over time - because ad rates for this type of media are in decline. But I also understand how it pisses people off. Heck, it makes the site virtually unusable if you work on it, so believe me I understand. I can only suggest installing an ad blocker if you find the ads are making your experience of the site bad.
The supporter system is a project Trucks and I came up with completely independent of Brett, and Brett doesn't receive any of the money people donate, so he's not profiting from it. It could've been a simple donation system for the volunteer staff but in order to make it a cooler and more rewarding concept we added various perks we could think up for those who donate; perks that we ourselves would appreciate too (any staff with Supporter tags are paying out of their own pockets).
The removal of ads was a perk we got permission from Brett to add to the system when we approached him with the concept, but it's not the reason we made it and it's not the reason the ads have gotten worse (assuming that they have gotten worse; I wouldn't really know because before the Supporter system was developed I always used an ad blocker out of necessity anyway)
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Out of curiosity, what if another reason we are getting increased ads is due to ioi getting less revenue from the users that are in the supporter program that gets the ads removed? Have you considered maybe giving ioi say 10% of the cut since it is his website and in exchange, you guys have control of the ad placement and etc? I know its supposed to be for the writers and mods and etc but 10% (as an example) to keep the rest of the users happy is a goodsh deal in my books. Cause then, ioi can have ad rev and 10% of the supporter rev cause its his site while you guys get 90% and keep the intrusive ads away which makes people happy and potentially doesn't scare away new users.
