This. I get to support my favorite time-waster with real money, and not have to be annoyed with distractions.
Still and all, surely the SD Powers That Be can’t be intending this?!
Sorry, but “pay us money and we’ll get rid of the highly intrusive advertising which makes the site a chore to navigate” is not a business model I care to support.
I respectfully disagree. I don’t mind paying the 15 dollars a year. Chump change.
Well, ok, how do you suggest the Dope raise money?
Not by low-level extortion, on general principles.
After infectious trojan viruses that completely screw your system up, auto playing ads featuring audio are the worst things ever on the internet. I’m sorry SDMB has them.
I use Ad Block Plus, and it works wonders, and for those who don’t want to be a paid subscriber, it was free. So, if spending money is not your bag, I’ll repeat, that it was a free program and it works.
If installing free programs is not your bag, then a reasonably priced subscription, especially considering what it delivers, to the SDMB also eliminates the ads, if that hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Correct.
Asking users to pay money because the service being provided is worth paying for is admirable.
Asking users to put up with a *certain amount *advertising in lieu of paying a membership is tolerable.
Asking users to pay money because otherwise they’ll be subjected to intrusive advertising is a different story.
On Adblock: I use it religiously. If the SDMB had less ridiculous ads, I would be perfectly willing to whitelist the site to help generate a bit of revenue.
Particularly when said ads have been known to infect one’s comput with malware.
So like I am genuinely fearing for the boards a little bit here.
The great majority of people (lurkers, casual posters, etc) are neither going to get adblock nor going to pay for a subscription to the boards. Instead, the great majority of people are just going to stop coming here.
What gives??
I think there are a lot of people, these days, who mostly use sites that are well curated. The days of mindlessly “surfing the web” aren’t as much of a thing anymore. People have a few sites that they go to to get their content, so it’s not as important for them to use stuff like AdBlock (especially if they’re getting a lot of their content from video sites with integrated advertising).
Someone like that isn’t likely to say “gosh, I should get AdBlock so that the SDMB doesn’t look like a Geocities trainwreck.” He’s going to say, “Welp! This site blows!” and that’ll be the end of that.
Exactly.
I think this ad thing is more serious than some people realize. 
It’s really strange. Seems like an easy fix, but there may be a lot I don’t know here.
Honestly, I think you’re (the generic “you”, that is) nuts to surf the web without using an adblocker nowadays.
I don’t know anyone in real life who goes on the internet without an adblocker. How can you stand to look at ANY site without one? There is garbage everywhere. My fucking e-mail puts up ads. Block them! Block them all!
Well then, that would seem to answer your question above!
If the SDMB had reasonable ads, then reasonable people might be persuaded to whitelist the site and help generate revenue. Instead, we’re in a situation as you describe it: the ads are either being adblocked, or the luddites without blocking software are being chased off.
In either case, no revenue is being generated.