Jimquisition: The Adblock Episode

[Matthewmagic]

I like the idea of a paid model. Maybe putting the trailers in the middle of the physical cut of the show but allowing a trailer free experience for those who pay something like 20 dollars a year. I know the escapist does exactly that, and I think they have the right idea now all we need is some kind of card kids can buy at gamestop or walmart to help them pay for this.

 

[MowDownJoe]

Personally I think the ideal scenario is Adblock Plus' <a href=https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads>Acceptable Ads initiative where sites which hold their ads to a specific standard can have their ads show up by default on users with Adblock installed. Notably Reddit ads are white listed by default. The majority of ad block users would probably be ok as long as the ads aren't annoyingly intrusive, although I do understand forcing ad companies to a baseline standard will be easier said then done.

That is a good solution, I must say. And if the Escapist's ads haven't changed in recent years (been a Pub Club member for a bit now), then they need to shape up and get into that mold. I remember once browsing the Escapist on my phone, and seeing an ad slow the browser down to a crawl and taking up half of my screen. The banner even scrolled with the browser. Now, that was just ridiculously intrusive. Ads like that are just unacceptable.

To be honest, the only reason I didn't just stop visiting the Escapist then was because they helped me discover LoadingReadyRun, and that the Escapist was where their new stuff was. And the only reason I signed up for Pub Club was because of the promo going on during Desert Bus where a sign up added $10 to the marathon's total. (Also, Daily Drop was running at the time, and I wanted to see the high-quality footage. The explosions look so much better.) If I was one of those people who only came to the Escapist just for Yahtzee... well, I probably wouldn't pay for Pub Club and my account probably would've been banned for preaching about AdBlock.

 

[mjharper]

I have adblock enabled by default, but disable it on a site by site basis. Youtube is whitelisted, because I watch so much material there, and I have subscriptions to sites like The Escapist or Nexus Mods. So I try to balance the convenience of blocking ads with supporting content creators. Maybe my approach is too selective, but I do try to be aware of the negative consequences of adblocking.

What annoys me with Youtube ads are those which challenge creator content for length. Does anybody watch 13 minute ads? In those circumstances I'll reload the page to get a shorter ad, because I know that pressing 'skip' doesn't generate revenue for the creators. Again, I think that's a fair compromise. But if the ads themselves were less intrusive, it would be easier to stomach them in general.

 

[Fayathon]

I hate ads, but I've no idea how bad they've gotten here, as I've been PubClub since its inception, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the site, I love the content (for the most part), but unless the ads are easy to skip around or are silent and unobtrusive I refuse to watch them.

For what it's worth though, I will remain PubClub as long as I can for the sake of my sanity, the site, and the fact that I love the high def HTML5 videos, the Flash player can fuck right off.

Keep doing what you do Jim, you make my Mondays a little better every week.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

BAH WEEP GRAH NAH WEEP NINI BAH

OT: I do use the software but have specific ads (Jim,Yahtzee and bobs in particular) whitelisted so they still show when I view certain content on this website.

I do however fully block most websites out there because I don't usually care for ads in general, to me they serve no purpose other than to annoy me.

It just happens that some here are the exception but not the rule.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

Bottom line; advertising on the internet is in most places is out of hand. As a consumer who is given a tool to make their online experience tolerable i will take that opportunity. End of.

Jim keeps talking about consumer rights and he is dead on here; as a consumer i reserve my right to use No Script to control what runs when i open a page and how. No Script is especially a good case because i feel it is so vital to protect you from rouge plugins. It's a security and privacy issue as much as it is a convenience issue. Adds are effectively collateral damage in this regard. All scrips are a way into your computer. The web is simply not safe enough for you to NOT use these tools.

While I agree that safety is a priority, there's a difference between blocking all things, and blocking some things. Whitelisting sites that you frequently travel isn't a bad thing, even if it exposes you to a bit of risk. There is that in all things, risk is the nature of life. The trick is to cover your bases without doing much hard. To suggest that you pre-emptively head off all security risks is somewhat akin to the behaviors you see in games like Day Z. In order to verify that no one will shoot you, you shoot everyone first. Saves everyone the trouble of knowing who's friendly and who isn't: simply make everyone unfriendly, problem solved.

However, collateral damage is a side effect of that approach. Everyone's threshold for tolerable is different, so everyone deserves a fair shake. Adblocking everyone, and script blocking everyone, is not too dissimilar from that. Guaranteeing no issues by always heading off trouble while still getting benefits is a little unfair to the people who make a living this way. That's not to say it's an all-or-nothing approach, but that is to say making this the common, default approach will create problems, at least potentially in the future if not immediately.

Everyone's mileage may vary, but it may help some to reconsider. :3

 

[MoltenSilver]

I do run Adblock and no-script on my browser, but I do turn it off for sites i frequently visit like The Escapist.

That said, The Escapist does not make it easy.

Compounding that, I don't feel like I even have a 'choice' to put up with the annoyance; I have a hyper-sensory disorder, which means that a sudden burst of loud noise, or even something like 2 different audio tracks churning out gibberish by playing over each other that my brain can't interpret causes me PHYSICAL HARM, and in an absolute literal sense ruins my entire day by putting my body into a long-lasting panic-state (and sometimes night as well if I can't sleep due to the pain from said response). Every time this site's ad-network permits this kind of assault, I have to pay for another dose of my medication (which still ruins my day by crippling my mental faculties, but it's my only option to deal with my disorder).

I love the hell out of the escapist content, I'm on here daily, and it's the only reason I'm even trying to tolerate the grotesque ads allowed. but as I simply can not afford publisher's club in my financial situation, that puts me in a major dilemma. I'm not threatening to turn adblock/no-script on because I do agree its a form of revenue-denial for someone I think deserves their revenue, but that just leaves me with the options of a) continuing to put my health at risk if these practices aren't reigned-in, or b) walking away.

Guess which one is going to win sooner or later?

 

[Zook024]

I have no problem turning it off when I am viewing a column or series that I follow (such as The Jimquision) but often times, like you said Jim, sites like IGN have these massive, intrusive, elaborate banners and overlays that seemingly don't want me to even view their content. In addition it's a real deal breaker when 30 sec commercials air before a 1 min video or even better yet, when the commercial loads up and plays instantly but the video I want to view takes 5 minutes to load...and it's only a minute itself. This image sums it up nicely, http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/google-servers-for-ads-for-videos.jpg

 

[SecondPrize]

I first heard of and found adblock shortly after learning about banner ads capable of infecting one with malware simply by browsing to the page on which the ad is located. The problem is I don't know this shit at all and thus can't make an informed decision about whether any website, even in the less dodgy bits of the internet, can be counted on to stifle this shit so I err on the side of caution. Also, I don't always agree with Jim but even when I think he's off his rocker I at least get some enjoyment from having something to be pissed off about and write angry rants on the forums for a while. Can't those who hate him and want him to suffer financially see that he's still providing them a valuable service?

 

[Mastemat]

It's EXACTLY what you said, Jim.
I use Adblock because ads have gotten.... just offensively annoying...
Having been on the internet since it's beginning... (compuserve bitches!)
I must disagree....

While it currently might be a vicious cycle...
It didn't start as that.
Ads were annoying and intrusive in the beginning of the internet as soon as people figured out how to make them... those stupid popups... we've had that name almost as long as we've had the internet.

Adblock was born as a response to the BS of advertisers.... if they hadn't been so obnoxious for years... why would I feel the need/want to make them go away?
(also, I am offended at all these tits and vagoos shoved in my face from all the adds... "ooo this person likes video games, clearly it must be a heterosexual male who loves women as big titted, vagoo spread objects... probably is white too!"
......
I'm a gay man, I don't want to see that shit... and it CERTAINLY doesn't make me want to click anything...
There's nothing grosser than vaginas... I don't trust ANYTHING that bleeds for a week and doesn't die... just disgusting.)

So I adblock because I don't want to see that shit.
But since you asked so nicely... and didn't play the victim card... you could have easily just whined about it... but you actually took the time to legitimately examine the issue at hand.
And I respect that.
It's why I watch your show and have always enjoyed it since it's inception.
So I will tentatively whitelist you.
So long as your ads don't play stupid noise and/or have basically nude women... Cause I ain't got time for that shit.

EDIT: AAAAAAND as soon as I unblocked the adds.... a lovely embedded musical add started up mixing with your video producing a cacophonous racket that the word "noise" fails to even encompass.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I don't use Adblock, nor do I plan to, nor do I advocate its use, but by god, The Escapist hasn't been making it easy for me the past few months. Video ads, which play on the sides and bottom of the page, starting themselves, with SOUND, which I then have to close everytime I open a new page, have occasionally made browsing the site a downright pain in the ass.

This is my thought as well. I never intend to use any sort of adblocking. I do, however, place a reasonable weight on simply feeling respected by the content creators who's works I happily partake of. I want to support those who make content I enjoy, and I'm perfectly happy to support them via ads. If, however, I feel that no attempt is being made to respect me by at least choosing an ad service that doesn't intentionally mess up my browsing experience then I will stop partaking of that content.

 

[Weaver]

The fact that the team doesn't know these are present, yet have been on this site for at least half a year is somewhat troubling.

May I humbly suggest the Escapist staff try browsing the site as a regular user for a day to see what the experience is like?

snip

The problem is the Staff usually don't have time to do that, especially during their working hours. There's lots of stuff to do that doesn't involve going on the site itself. I can't speak personally about their actual schedule but I'd make a guess that they only really browse the forums when posting videos and checking for feedback. That's why they ask Moderators and users to report these issues, because chances are we'll see them way before they get the chance.

I understand they're busy, I'm the lead developer at my company so I understand what it can be like. That said, only they can ensure the user experience is what they intended. We don't know if those ads are or aren't a mistake, so why would we report them? Not all problems are as obvious as a 404 and those are the ones that require UX validation. It's usually a matter of process, not a task assigned to an individual.

 

[Lord Doomhammer]

I'm gonna go into rant mode here so bear with me.

Does anyone remember the guys over at Rooster Teeth? I barely do,

You realize they are in the top 15 most subscribed on YouTube and are huge right?

And as I mentioned, I watched their stuff like 10 years ago, but stopped. I'm not the kind of person who forgives or gives second chances. They ruined the experience for me, and I have not and will not go back to them for it. So forgive me for not knowing what they're up to these days.

I'm gonna go into rant mode here so bear with me.

But at the end of the day, nothing that I've found on the internet, that is ad supported, is vital or irreplaceable. And considering the harm they can do; and have done, the 'content providers' are going to need to do a major rethink before I or anyone who runs adblock is going to think twice about it.

To me, this has always been something I could never understand. There is no Ministry of Taste, nor should there be. Whether content is valid or invalid in one's opinion doesn't mean it's universally that way across the board. Whereas I might enjoy a certain video or concept, someone else may not. And that's okay. No one's taste should be the sole gateway of whether or not something is worth existence.

Although I have to question your concept of "vital" or "irreplaceable." If you don't think something has enough purpose to exist, why do you consume it while actively circumventing its payment. I would imagine you don't steal every movie you watch, book you read, or steal every meal you eat. In the same vein, why is it justified that you can have every bit of advertisement-supported content without needing to suffer the advertisements? If it's not vital, and you don't want it to continue, simply stop consuming. And if you like how it tastes, and enjoy the content, why not suffer through some ads or an annual PubClub subscription fee to pay for it?

By your analogy, all you really need is MREs and water to survive, so chefs who make gourmet food should all be provided raw ingredients, then not paid after they've prepared them. Nothing of physical value was lost (except the years of talent that cultivated the result), so it's all fair game, right?

So yeah, it may suck to have ads, but you should reconsider their use. Everyone has different opinions, but at the very least, consider why this helps people. All it costs you is thirty seconds. It costs these creators, by extension, their livelihoods.

Firstly, MREs can not be substituted for food, at least not on a long term basis. The damage to your colon would be catastrophic.

Secondly, what I was driving at is that if they suddenly started using negative reinforcement to make me watch their ads or if the blocked me from their website for not using ads or if like above with Rooster Teeth, the website became unusable due to the ads. Then I would have no problem doing something else for 5 - 10 minutes a day then watching their video. I could just as easily be playing TF2, or painting my 40k figs or driving nails into my head. It is to say, there exists an alternative.

And this is the whole thing about ads, they exist as negative reinforcement for the content. And to a point they outweigh the positives of the content. Especially when the site in question starts using ads that host malicious software like megaupload and other such sites did. Ads are not a solution to a problem, they are at best a short term solution to make things work.

As for this 'premium' stuff with the pub club or whatever they're calling it. I've done things like that on some sites. DakkaDakka.com for instance, I'm one of their DKMs or what ever they call it. I paid their fee and got the extra crap. But I'm still undecided about doing that for the escapist. On the one hand, I would be supporting things I like, such as critical miss and jim. On the other hand I would be supporting the things I don't like, such as movie bob and these forums, which are renound throughout the internet for being some of the most stuck up their own ass of all time (I know, people in glass houses). But the point I'm driving at is why should I support something I don't support?

 

[V8 Ninja]

Having actually written for a website, I understand the importance of ads. They generate revenue and allow sites to stay up while also allowing the site owners to continue pushing out content that, for the end-user, is entirely free. Because of that, I tend to whitelist sites which I respect/trust. However, there are three big reasons why I still use adblocking software for the majority of the sites on the internet, with one being a bit selfish and the other two being quite reasonable (at least in my eyes);

1. I use certain sites WAY too much, to the point where I would end up spending 40% of my time starring at ads if I whitelisted them. (The biggest offender of this is Youtube.)

2. I have no idea if scrolling over a specific ad will result in nothing happening or several pop-ups coming out at me. It's easier to me simply remove the ads then try to play a game of computer mouse Frogger.

3. Some ad-heavy sites can, literally crash my browser if I don't have adblocking turned on.

More often than not, The Escapist has fallen victim to the third point. During several times when I decided to whitelist The Escapist and just deal with the ads, my browser ended up crashing because there was simply too much stuff going on in a small handful of tabs. Having just turned off adblock before writing this comment, it seems that The Escapist is not being stuffed with ads. If that trends continues, I'm very willing to keep adblocking turned off for this site. I just don't hope it changes back to very ad-heavy pages.

 

[AdagioBoognish]

I find it strange that between piracy and adblocking, Jim appears to be more soft on the one that affects him. Either both are theft, or neither.

For the record, I prefer the "neither" answer, and a similar stance would have been more welcome for that episode, admitting that not giving out "hypohetical future profits", is not the same thing as stealing. The important thing is that our content producers make a living, but beyond that, it's a matter of helpfulness and courtesy, versus hanging on for the ride as an extra freeloader but without bringing much extra burden either.

This was pretty much his stance in the video though. Jim said he didn't consider adblocking a video stealing and I consider what you said, "admitting that not giving out "hypohetical future profits", is not the same thing as stealing. The important thing is that our content producers make a living, but beyond that, it's a matter of helpfulness and courtesy, versus hanging on for the ride as an extra freeloader but without bringing much extra burden either" to be a perfect summery of what Jim was saying in the adblock video.

Whitelisted the site, couldn't bare with the ads though..

So i guess i'm part of the "Publisher's Club" now, just for you, Jimmy Boy!

Lol, just got mine too.

 

[sky14kemea]

I understand they're busy, I'm the lead developer at my company so I understand what it can be like. That said, only they can ensure the user experience is what they intended. We don't know if those ads are or aren't a mistake, so why would we report them? Not all problems are as obvious as a 404 and those are the ones that require UX validation. It's usually a matter of process, not a task assigned to an individual.

That's fair. I actually know next to nothing about the tech on the site, so I don't fully understand that last bit...

All I know is people have reported those kind of ads before, just 'cause it annoys them, and the Techies are willing to look at it.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

I don't adblock "The Escapist". I've seen all the ads, including that one with the bear.

I do, however, admit that I've never clicked on a single ad. Not once. Sorry.

One of said ads (it was one of these dating site ads) managed to trigger a "object blocked due to malicious content" warning from BitDefender. I can't say how accurate this was, but BitDefender doesn't give me hundreds of false-positives like this. That ad was shown on "The Escapist".

There's a general perception that all internet advertising is scamming ("You're the one-millionth visitor to this website! Click here to claim your prize!") that's generally aimed at people too young or inexperienced with the 'net to know any better. Some of them aimed at children (the Spongebob-themed one "shoot the jellyfish to claim a prize" comes to mind) strike me as particularly repulsive. I'm not sure that ALL advertising is like this, but nowadays I wouldn't dare to click even on the ads that name legitimate companies. Yeah, it might SAY it's from a reputable banking website, but so did those e-mails I used to get, before content filtering became a "thing", that wanted my online banking username and password for a "security update".

Jim, I would never want to stop you from being paid for your content. I've received hours of entertainment from it, and with the exception of one video of yours that I particularly disagreed with (the idea that people shouldn't object to you liking stuff that they don't - I think this is a fair point for someone posting on a forum, but not for a professional games critic who's paid to give a fair and unbiased opinion) I've never tried to dictate to you what you should or shouldn't publish. Quite the opposite in fact - you've got popular on the basis of the content that you produce by your own standards, so what sense would it make for you to suddenly give up doing this and start pandering to a vocal subsection of your audience (who might be in the minority anyway)?

Having said that, I think the advertising "revenue stream" is not necessarily as permanent as it may seem right now. It'll only work as long as the advertisers can convince the product sellers that the ads are shifting stock, which may be the case, but it's difficult to see who's buying on the basis of internet ads alone. I wish I had an alternative for you... I just don't. I'm not a "pub club" member (sorry) so I can't say "the subscription model is best".

I just don't want you guys to get wedded to a revenue stream that may turn out to be less-than-reliable, and then turn into the modern equivalent of the horse company who tried to ban the model-T, or the record companies who said that MTV would ruin the recording industry. (Even if it turns out that last group may have had a point there.)

 

[azriel2422]

I do not use adblock and haven't in the past, but the content by and large on this site lasts a little over 5 minutes. a 30 sec ad (at most where I am) for a 6 minute video isn't that big of a deal, especially considering how bad it is on other sites. Plus, most of the ads I've seen are at least in the "ballpark" of something I might be interested in, so I can give that a pass. Hell, most of the advertisements are for the Escapist shows themselves.

All I am saying is the Escapist does a pretty good job of keeping adverts to a minimum while delivering consistently entertaining content. I don't know what the alternative will end up being, but I hope sites like this one don't suffer because of the need for advertisement money. I guess I can just become a pub club member

 

[Atmos Duality]

Advertising as is a nasty see-saw. Too many ads drive viewers away, too few drive content away.

For the "consumer", it trades a direct monetary cost for an opportunity cost, which is generally much lower risk.
It's such an incredibly effective model, that it's everywhere, and that's the real problem.

I literally cannot leave my neighborhood without being advertised to at least once.
I cannot drive any more than a block without having some advertisement blared to me.
I cannot set foot in any public place without sharing proximity with some sort of commercial.

And I have no control over that at all. But I do have more control over that online.
Which is a blessing and a curse, because ad-revenue pays for bloody EVERYTHING online.

It's awfully damn tempting to just block known noise and focus on the product, but I whitelist my regular sites, and just opt to not visit them when they're pissing me off (I've nearly left the Escapist for good a few times).

It's an "entitled" attitude to take, but like Jim, I cannot judge anyone too harshly for it; because we are practically under siege by advertisements for a large part of our waking hours in real life, and everywhere online.

 

[rofltehcat]

I think the whole topic revolves around a lack of control over what ads are distributed. Now, I don't think that Escapist staff can possibly go through all the possible ads and blacklist some (partly because different browsing habits and especially countries receive different ads) but I think somewhere in the chain between the people producing shitty ads and between the end users there needs to be control put in.

What Jim said in the episode is true: Most people use adblock because of annoying and intrusive ads.
However, the Escapist is part of that problem in my opinion. In the end it isn't the advertisers damaged by bad ad practices but the sites on which ads are (not) displayed because they are the ones not getting any money. Therefore, maybe switching to other ad distribution services might theoretically be an option but I am told (e.g. on the blog of Shamus Young when he considered switching, though he'd probably get worse deals than the Escapist) that the differences are either too small or that the money is just too little.
So they are really stuck between a rock and a hard place. They certainly don't have the pull needed to get reliable (and well-paying) ad partners and some of the ads really diminish the good content they produce.


As an experiment, I turned off adblock and loaded several pages of the Escapist in different tabs. The ads I received weren't in front of the video but either on the right side or down at the very bottom of the site. Results:

Unacceptable: The first two ads I received were of an auto-playing video posing as "celebrity news" that started playing on a much louder volume than the actual video (and at the same time, too!).

Questionable: Another ad was a "view movies for free" auto-playing video ad (thankfully silent; my Web-of-Trust addon marked the site behind it as deeply orange, which even some porn sites don't get).

Bearable: A third ad is comprised of a auto-starting but silent video ad comprised of several smaller but harmless ad videos (e.g. osteo porosis medicine (???), car tires and other stuff). This one is actually bearable but I am on an unlimited (total traffic, not bandwidth) connection and I'd hate something like that to guzzle up a limited data plan (that I had for some time in the past) while I leave a tab open or write a post just because it doesn't stop loading more video ads.

Ok: Another ad was just a 1:34 (silent) video for "flowplayer". While the ad was unobtrusive and overall ok, it looked a little long for my taste, but meh, whatever.


I'll leave Adblock inactive on the Escapist for a little while longer. However, I'll turn it back on when I'm annoyed by ads again