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I'd prefer a website that looks like something from 1996 any day over one that I have to allow scripts from a dozen different sources to even get it to load properly.

I agree. And while FTP- or more precisely idiot users with a single password for everything- is a problem, it's probably a smaller problem than the potential for intrusion from running every script and plugin that arrives without wondering what it does.

I have two browsers open on my desktop. The first is very firmly locked down and gets used for most browsing... and if somebody can't present his message without demanding I execute his media I'm likely to close it fast. The second uses NoScript to grant limited access to eBay etc., and to foramina like this one (which by coincidence are all based on SMF).

MarkMLl

I'd prefer a website that looks like something from 1996 any day over one that I have to allow scripts from a dozen different sources to even get it to load properly. I'm interested in content, I want to have as much information as possible with as little effort as possible required to extract it. All that added bloat only gets in my way.

Yep. I am SO sick of sites using all that javascript for ads and other nonsense that doesn't do anything for me. I am not opposed to ads -- I absolutely understand that ads fund a lot of the sites I use. I consent to ads as such. What I do not consent to is 10x as long page loads (little of which is actually due to the payload size, but rather because of the sequenced requests caused by nested scripts) and web pages using incredible amounts of CPU just to sit there. I'm the kind of person who tends to have lots of browser windows open, and if every one of those were allowed to load all the scripts it wanted, my CPU would be pegged, all the time.

So I use ad blockers to block all that crap, simply to reclaim my computer resources. If websites were willing to do server-side ads, such that by the time they reach my browser, there's no scripts, I'd be OK with allowing ads. But IMHO, using your readers' computer resources greedily is disrespectful, and I absolutely have no obligation to permit it.

I also wish I could put out a bounty on anyone who uses a lightbox (the thing where the page dims and a modal dialog appears) to ask me to sign up for your newsletter. I guarantee, using one of those to nag me before I've even had a chance to read the page is the way to get me to not even consider signing up, no matter what.

I also wish I could put out a bounty on anyone who uses a lightbox (the thing where the page dims and a modal dialog appears) to ask me to sign up for your newsletter. I guarantee, using one of those to nag me before I've even had a chance to read the page is the way to get me to not even consider signing up, no matter what.

I always wondered what they were called, that's the thing that has been hurting my eyes. Some of them say "Sorry for the intrustion" about their cookies when they don't realize it maybe uncomfortable when they darken the rest of the page.

I think of it as a bit like say 20 years ago, someone working with an old CRT screen and another person there adjusting the contrast and brightness controls going from one extreme to another thinking they're helping them see better.

Someone told me that they switched off javascript years ago by default and now I am finding I have to do that a lot more often.

Now with adverts, what I see some websites seem to be engaging in spammy behaviour and not just adverts alone. Rather than display adverts at the sides of the page where it scrolls with the rest of the page and so you see different ones I have seen websites display the same adverts on either sides of the page in a fixed position that flash and annoy/distract me, some appearing over the contents that either get in the way or expand the page making it jump. In other words interfering with the contents and my viewing of the page and they put the fixed videos that autoplay, so now it's easier without the aggravation by turning off the scripts as soon as I see a small dialogue with rest of the page darkening.

I don't mind adverts but not shoved in my face over the contents like with any fixed element.

To add to insult I am occasionally seeing, "Turn on Javascript for a better website experience" which is I turned it off in the first place.

Dare click that bookmark killer to kill unwanted fixed elements and I have seen some sites as of recent engage in scroll jacking and I thought taking away my right click away was bad.

Blocking adverts is also a problem in the long run, for a forum which needs the money, as all do.

I for one am entirely happy with adverts. I'm not happy with adverts which demand the privilege of running code on my computer, and will send a list of my bureau rates to anybody who thinks they can stand the tab.

MarkMLl

Many of the users that block ads do so because they find *ALL* advertisements to be useless annoyances^*.  Even if you get them to turn off  their ad-blockers, you wont get any clickthrough from them without tricking them.  Any site with deceptive ads doesn't deserve any revenue they get from them.  Customers that will click to buy anything shiny waved in front of them usually aren't technically savvy enough to (a) want, (b) install, and (c) maintain an ad-blocker. Therefore I question whether ad-blockers significantly impact the revenue stream of any reputable site. 

* The last time I bought anything due to an advertisement was back in the '80s, from an ad in a computer magazine.  I have never bought anything from a TV or internet ad.  OTOH I will occasionally impulse buy stuff that has been reviewed by a source I trust.

Many of the users that block ads do so because they find *ALL* advertisements to be useless annoyances^*.  Even if you get them to turn off  their ad-blockers, you wont get any clickthrough from them without tricking them.  Any site with deceptive ads doesn't deserve any revenue they get from them.  Customers that will click to buy anything shiny waved in front of them usually aren't technically savvy enough to (a) want, (b) install, and (c) maintain an ad-blocker. Therefore I question whether ad-blockers significantly impact the revenue stream of any reputable site. 

* The last time I bought anything due to an advertisement was back in the '80s, from an ad in a computer magazine.  I have never bought anything from a TV or internet ad.  OTOH I will occasionally impulse buy stuff that has been reviewed by a source I trust.

Exactly this. Ads are irrelevant to me, I'm just not a typical consumer, I have never deliberately clicked on an online ad in my life, I have never seen something in an ad on TV and gone out and bought it. Serving me ads is just a waste of bandwidth and a waste of everyone's time. When I see enough ads for something or someone (eg politicians) that I notice, it actively starts to turn me against them.

I didn't mind online ads until they started getting pushy. Blinky animated stuff, then popups, it got so invasive that at some point I said ENOUGH and actually bought an ad blocker back before the free ones were a thing. I never looked back.

"Relying on adverts isn't a sustainable business model, and a business model is what a forum needs if it's going to grow and thrive"

What would be a "sustainable business model"?

Something that doesn't rely on a broker- Google or otherwise- which is likely to demote you on a whim and insist that they are not accountable to you.

MarkMLl

Quote from: tooki on April 11, 2020, 07:48:02 pm

I also wish I could put out a bounty on anyone who uses a lightbox (the thing where the page dims and a modal dialog appears) to ask me to sign up for your newsletter. I guarantee, using one of those to nag me before I've even had a chance to read the page is the way to get me to not even consider signing up, no matter what.

I always wondered what they were called, that's the thing that has been hurting my eyes. Some of them say "Sorry for the intrustion" about their cookies when they don't realize it maybe uncomfortable when they darken the rest of the page.

I think of it as a bit like say 20 years ago, someone working with an old CRT screen and another person there adjusting the contrast and brightness controls going from one extreme to another thinking they're helping them see better.

Someone told me that they switched off javascript years ago by default and now I am finding I have to do that a lot more often.

Now with adverts, what I see some websites seem to be engaging in spammy behaviour and not just adverts alone. Rather than display adverts at the sides of the page where it scrolls with the rest of the page and so you see different ones I have seen websites display the same adverts on either sides of the page in a fixed position that flash and annoy/distract me, some appearing over the contents that either get in the way or expand the page making it jump. In other words interfering with the contents and my viewing of the page and they put the fixed videos that autoplay, so now it's easier without the aggravation by turning off the scripts as soon as I see a small dialogue with rest of the page darkening.

I don't mind adverts but not shoved in my face over the contents like with any fixed element.

To add to insult I am occasionally seeing, "Turn on Javascript for a better website experience" which is I turned it off in the first place.

Dare click that bookmark killer to kill unwanted fixed elements and I have seen some sites as of recent engage in scroll jacking and I thought taking away my right click away was bad.

Yep, I agree right you on pretty much everything you say.

The lightbox, as its name suggests, was originally developed for zooming into picture thumbnails without requiring a page load. Then some turds started using them for popover messages (in sensible ways), and suddenly like wildfire the fucking things were everywhere for nagging.

I know exactly what you mean about the flickery jumpy fixed items.

It’s incredible to me that my internet connection now is literally 400 times as fast as the one I had 20 years ago, but these dipshit web devs and site operators have seen to it that performance is far worse than it was back then.

I also wish I could put out a bounty on anyone who uses a lightbox (the thing where the page dims and a modal dialog appears) to ask me to sign up for your newsletter. I guarantee, using one of those to nag me before I've even had a chance to read the page is the way to get me to not even consider signing up, no matter what.

Man I hate those things. I automatically close them when they appear, never read them. Ever.

Kind of like how everything is "known to the state of California to cause cancer", it has no meaning anymore because it is everywhere. It gets ignored as soon as it is presented.

Almost nobody makes money on youtube, despite half the world desperately trying it

Quote from: peter-h on April 13, 2020, 06:02:55 am

Almost nobody makes money on youtube, despite half the world desperately trying it

That's the case with trying to make a living being any type of celebrity. For every small timer who manages to get by there are at least 1,000 who try and get nowhere, and there are probably at least 1,000 small timers for every A-list celebrity. These numbers might actually be orders of magnitude larger even depending on how you define success.

Based on my video from 6 months ago, approximately 15,000 channels have over 1,000,000 subs. Almost every one of those would be a full time Youtuber.
And over 150,000 channels have over 100,000 subs. Many of those would be full time, I'd guess at least a third of them.
So you could in the order of 50,000 full time Youtubers in the world. But yeah, that's a tiny fraction of those with channels who aspire to get there.

Things are very transient on the web and I wanted to archive a long page (about 100 posts - teehee) and failed. Print to PDF from Chrome outputted the top few posts and blanked out the rest down to the sites page footer in whitespace style. I moved over to Opera as it has option to Save to PDF (although this renders to a single WYSIWYG PDF page, so it may be end up 10cm by 1300cm PDF file, actually perfect in many ways, no pagebreaks, image rescaling  etc)

Again the discourse website spewed out the top few posts. Move along to halfway the page. Spewed out that portion leaving the others blank. Same for the bottom. Another point subtracted for infinite scroll. At least with MyBB, phpBB, SMF and vBulletin paging I can go through all the pages and do a reliable PDF save.