Derek, You read my mind! :-) I'm planning some kind of script to block "non-paying" customers. I understand your situation, we have unlimited access, but the lines are so bad in suburbia that I can only get 28.8. So I live with slow low-bandwidth connections. I can't get DSL or Cable access, and DirecPC seems rather stupid. So I know how you feel about speed. As to cost, I see your point also. However, if I go over _my_ bandwidth allotment at my web host it'll cost me 12 bucks for every gig (so if I go one meg over, I still pay $12). I think the thing that irks me, is that I only have two ad banners on each page (a 480x60 and a 120x90), and I screen all of them to make sure they are tasteful. I offer free technical support, and offer my businesses', not my personal, scripts under open source licenses. If ads aren't shown, I have to make money somehow, just like everyone else. So, either way someone looses - one way it's the giver, one the taker. Seems to me it should be the one benefiting (the taker), not the other way around. I think the thing surfers need to decide is whether they'd rather pay for the content with real cash or with ad banners. A few cents (isn't that what the pence exchange rate is?) isn't as bad as $200 or $300 (which is what I'd charge for one of my upcoming scripts). I mean, of course, there will always be the KDE Project, and other projects that get code and monetary donations, but until some big corporation donates some money and servers my way, I have to make it other ways. Perhaps the best solution would be an ad blocker that blocked Link Exchange and referral program ads. Link Exchange doesn't pay webmasters, and referrals are Cost-per-click. The ones that shouldn't be blocked, IMO, are the cost-per-impression campaigns that keep my business, along with great sites like Slashdot afloat. Like I said though, I see how it can be annoying if bandwidth (on the client side) costs money, people should just remember that it costs the web site bandwidth money too. -Tim ----------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler Universal Networks Information Tech. Consultant Christian Web Services Since 1996 ICQ #12495932 AIM: Uninettm An Authorized IPSwitch Reseller tbutler@uninetsolutions.com http://www.uninetsolutions.com ===================== "Solutions that Work" =====================
-----Original Message----- From: fountai@hursley.ibm.com [mailto:fountai@hursley.ibm.com] Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 3:25 AM To: SuSE English Subject: Re: [SLE] Re: Alternative Web Browser
Tim, the world doesn't all work like your part of it. In England, and most of Europe, we have to pay for our telephone calls. We also don't have high bandwidth connections for the most part - we tend to use 34K or 56K modems. Most pages that carry banner ads tend to pack the ads on, and each one is often an animated GIF which takes several seconds to download. Seriously, downloading all the banner ads on a few pages of a news site packed with them will cost me an appreciable amount of money: not 0.1p, but 2 or 3p. Over a period of a few weeks that represents a couple of beers. WWWoffle is written by an Englishman. Scratch an itch and all that...
Had banner ad users limited the number of ads they use, and kept the sizes down so they were much less offensive to download, maybe people wouldn't be so hostile to them. Bit late now. Ad blockers are part of the 'net, and people such as yourself are going to have to find a new business model.
I can see it happening: content will only be sent by the server if the ads are sent too. Hmmm. I feel an Apache module coming on... ;-)
"Timothy R. Butler" wrote:
Hi Greg,
If the ads go unnoticed by me even when they show up on a
page why should
I not filter ads? And aren't you also implying that free (as in free beer) software can only be supported by ads? If that's the case I'd rather pay for software (or web information if I truly need it) than use an app such as Gozilla! or the new, free versions of Eudora.
I didn't imply that free software must be supported by ads, I detest software with ads in them. What I think is fair is that the site you have to visit to get the program have some ads on it. Believe it or not, I make a nice amount from visitors downloading my open source programs just by loading the web pages with ads on them. I don't have any ads in the programs, but by the visitors being courteous enough to let my ads load (even if they don't view them), we both benefit. When I spend hours and hours of _my_ precious time creating a program for everyone to enjoy, why is it so hard to spend just a few extra seconds of _your_ time letting my ads load (and ignoring them). I get $.01 on many of the ads displayed even if you don't pay attention to them. It should be a token of gratitude for the people who do the work that you enjoy.
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