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Forums - Website Topics - Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love

Fumanchu on 06 March 2010

Can you forgive some people being fearful of legitimate security concerns? I've been here a while and in my time I've experienced a bevy of issues including site redirects, spyware ads, and flash scripts just ruining the experience of browsing this great site, to the point where I stop coming every so often they appear. Can you say that you're now controlling the implementation of the ads to keep the site safe?



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FaRmLaNd on 06 March 2010

Question.

Are the ads different depending on what country you live in?

Because I live in Australia and I find the ads perfectly find and non-intrusive. All this talk of virus's and such has never happened to me. Its almost like these guys are viewing a different website.



Torillian on 06 March 2010
rendo said:
ioi said:
rendo said:
ioi said:

No, you're seeing "value" as being dollars, I'm saying dollars are just one representation of value. That is all money is afterall, a representation of wealth or value.

I'm saying that rather than paying dollars, you pay via a small amount of inconvenience to view an ad. That ad view has a value much like a dollar bill does, and we can redeem that ad view via an advertiser who is willing to exchange it for dollars to reach a small percentage of you guys.

It's not a communication breakdown, just that a very good analogy went over your head because you read it too literally rather than understanding the underlying point that is trying to be made.

 

Sorry, the analogy is terrible.  I'm sorry it went over your head.  I mentioned it to the wife and she said it's terrible too and that it's more like not tipping after eating at a restaurant, but what do women know?

Which part still isn't making sense?

Let me put it an alternative way. We can (and probably will) offer VGChartz in two ways

  1. You don't pay anything to view the site but we show you ads
  2. You pay to have no ads shown

In both examples there is a cost to you and a revenue for VGChartz in exchange for the service offered. In the second case it is obviously a direct exchange of money. In the first case your cost is your inconvenience / time spent loading and viewing an ad and our revenue is what we can redeem that ad view for. In both cases you are "paying" to use VGChartz.

Another way to look at it is that if people are prepared to pay not to view ads  then the viewing of ads is obviously worth something (in $) to them (as a cost), just as the viewing of an ad is worth something in dollars to VGChartz. So an ad view is an alternative currency to a dollar - it costs you something and is worth something to VGChartz.

By blocking the ad view but not paying to allow that (i.e using an adblocker) you are taking something for nothing. You are using something without paying for it. Much like eating in a restaurant and not paying for it.

You make it sound like viewing/clicking ads is mandatory.... It isn't.  Therefore, terrible analogy.

If you don't care about laws or the livelihood of the owners of a restaurant there's nothing that makes paying for food mandatory either.



...

goddog on 06 March 2010
ioi said:
rendo said:
ioi said:

No, you're seeing "value" as being dollars, I'm saying dollars are just one representation of value. That is all money is afterall, a representation of wealth or value.

I'm saying that rather than paying dollars, you pay via a small amount of inconvenience to view an ad. That ad view has a value much like a dollar bill does, and we can redeem that ad view via an advertiser who is willing to exchange it for dollars to reach a small percentage of you guys.

It's not a communication breakdown, just that a very good analogy went over your head because you read it too literally rather than understanding the underlying point that is trying to be made.

 

Sorry, the analogy is terrible.  I'm sorry it went over your head.  I mentioned it to the wife and she said it's terrible too and that it's more like not tipping after eating at a restaurant, but what do women know?

Which part still isn't making sense?

Let me put it an alternative way. We can (and probably will) offer VGChartz in two ways

  1. You don't pay anything to view the site but we show you ads
  2. You pay to have no ads shown

In both examples there is a cost to you and a revenue for VGChartz in exchange for the service offered. In the second case it is obviously a direct exchange of money. In the first case your cost is your inconvenience / time spent loading and viewing an ad and our revenue is what we can redeem that ad view for. In both cases you are "paying" to use VGChartz.

Another way to look at it is that if people are prepared to pay not to view ads  then the viewing of ads is obviously worth something (in $) to them (as a cost), just as the viewing of an ad is worth something in dollars to VGChartz. So an ad view is an alternative currency to a dollar - it costs you something and is worth something to VGChartz.

By blocking the ad view but not paying to allow that (i.e using an adblocker) you are taking something for nothing. You are using something without paying for it. Much like eating in a restaurant and not paying for it.

im all for an option 2,

 

I would not ad block if it was not for the adverts bringing down browsers and infecting windows based computers.

 

hell even if you had the option to choose between flash based ads and non flash based ads i would view the adverts, (until this site i never had an issue or a reason to use ad block plus, hell i even switched browsers to use the thing so i can view the site with out issue)

 

but i have turned off sigs for the same reasons I dont view ads flash kills on macs especially older macs

 

and all my windows based PCs are tied up with work and can not risk another infection from this site,

 

the other option for this is you drive away customers & forum memebers and slowly kill the site, id rather not see that, ive enjoyed this site.

 

 



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minecraft name: hansrotec

XBL name: Goddog

TWRoO on 06 March 2010

I think you should do what Newgrounds do.... put pictures in behind the ads so that if they are blocked there is an image telling you to buy stuff from the site.

You could use those spaces to advertise the t-shirts.



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Joel12345 on 06 March 2010

ADs are annoying seriously



ssj12 on 06 March 2010
TWRoO said:
I think you should do what Newgrounds do.... put pictures in behind the ads so that if they are blocked there is an image telling you to buy stuff from the site.

You could use those spaces to advertise the t-shirts.

and should probably increase the number of (buy from vgchartz) links in the game release list.



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Games4Fun on 06 March 2010

People get up grab snacks, use restroom, or change channels with the other ads you mentioned. So in many ways the I dont want annoying ads so ill just remove them happens to those also.

No one like ads no one ever will. The day some people (myself also) can not block them is the day they will not bother to visit any of those sites. This in no would hurt me as thier is always othe rmeans to get the infomation. It would only hurt those sites as they would not be getting clicks.



Chrizum on 06 March 2010

1. The ads on this site are out of control. They can be harmful in multiple ways. Therefore I don't think you can expect people to tolerate them as they are now.

2. Ad Blockers are not illegal, and with good reason. But thankfully for sites like this, most people still don't use an Ad Blocker, so the problem isn't that big to begin with.



Mendicate Bias on 06 March 2010
ioi said:
Mendicate Bias said:
In the past this website has had some of the most intrusive and annoying ads I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. The browser would literally crash if I opened more than one tab the advertisements were so horrible.

Recently it has gotten a lot better but when you barrage people with ads that are not only annoying but actually crash browsers then you can expect them to ad block. Even if the intrusives ads haven't been around for a few months the repercussions are still there, once someone turns ad block on their not very likely to turn it back off.

If you want to keep people from ad blocking you need to have less intrusive and sketchy ads, simple as that. I can't tell you the number of times google has warned me of malicious software on the website due to the advertisements.

Integrate the ads into your website better and no one will care to ad block.

You see this is the issue I have.

The fundamental point here is that it's not your right to block ads. Whether you have the physical ability to or not is a different matter.

This website is provided under the condition that you view the ads.

As I say, a lot of sites (VGChartz included) will be looking into the possibility of blocking access for those using adblockers in the future if the issue continues to grow out of hand.

Ads are annoying in every medium - tv, radio, magazines, websites. They interrupt the media that you are consuming because people are willing to pay a media organisation to have that right. Ads are annoying by their very nature, but it's only on the internet that there is this attitude of "I don't want annoying ads so i'll just remove them". Nobody does but without them (and the more annoying they are normally means the better they pay) then websites will cease to exist or will have to take drastic action to counter the issue of adblockers.

There is a difference between an annoying ad and an intrusive ad that causes browsers to crash or gives people viruses. If someones personal property is being adversely affected they have every right to take measures to protect themselves.

If the advertisements on a certain telivision channel constantly burned your tv fuse then you will stop watching the channel or take measures to prevent yourself from having to watch those advertisements.

I don't use ad blocker since I switched to google chrome which has made browsing the site much easier but I understand completely why other people do because I went through the same problems they did just a few months back.

As an example IGN has pretty annoying ads too that expand to cover the page or temporarily redirect me. However I have never had my computer or browser crash because of IGN. I can't say the same about Vgchartz.



                                           

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