10 Feb 2016

How to lose 20% of your readers in one day

I was reading "How WIRED Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking" article and didn't know if I should laugh or cry. Here are some excerpts:

On an average day, more than 20 percent of the traffic to WIRED.com comes from a reader who is blocking our ads. We know that you come to our site primarily to read our content

Translation: we know that more than 20% of our users hate our irrelevant ads covering half the page. Fucking freeloaders, we can't make a penny out of them!

We know that there are many reasons for running an ad blocker, from simply wanting a faster, cleaner browsing experience to concerns about security and tracking software.

Translation: we know that ads can be obnoxious and sometimes distribute malware. Hell, big companies like Forbes distributed malware twice last year. We don't care, as long as we get paid.

So, in the coming weeks, we will restrict access to articles on WIRED.com if you are using an ad blocker. There will be two easy options to access that content.

Translation: WIRED just gave a middle finger to 20% of its users. What a great idea!


EDIT: lots of companies seem to be reacting to WIRED's move in one way or another. For comparison, here's the comment by Stack Overflow advertising managers. Now, that's an attitude that actually makes sense!

5 thoughts on “How to lose 20% of your readers in one day

    • Hehe, I've read about them. :)

      Don't worry, we have similar Pointy-Haired Bosses here too. ;) Today I was helping my friend with her laptop - our local TV station has 3 can't skip or fast-forward video ads before the start of actual program. Not one, but three! Un-f*ing-believable!

  1. I hate ads (also because my internet connection is not so good) ... so I'm always inside that 20% ;)

    • I don't see ads. And I'm accessing all the sites I want. That puts me in what? Bottom 0.1%?

      Usually it's a matter of few tweaks in uBlock configuration, and only for wired.com I had to resort to writing a simple TamperMonkey script. :twisted:

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