Adverts are live on LES - Info

AnthonySmith · June 25

Howdy, if you have AdBlock or UBlock, etc., this is probably a ??!?? huh ??!!?? thread for anyone else, if you want to support LES then you can enable ads:

They are only forced for non-logged-in users.

If you enable it, you get a supporter tag as a thanks, but no pressure, no one likes adverts, I get it, the revenue will first pay for LES costs and then go towards community projects, promotions and advance buy downs to bring better deals to the community.

I won't go into it again, the reasons have been discussed. I hope this is is least intrusive model possible, if it turns out to be an issue I will change it, already not pumped about the google overlay shit for EU users.

Comments are welcome.

c1vhosting · June 25

thank you!

imok · June 25

Ads and ad blocker notice are both showing

AnthonySmith · June 25

Well, this is awkward

"Content not viewable in your region"

Neoon · June 25

@AnthonySmith said:
Well, this is awkward

"Content not viewable in your region"

Must be UK

AnthonySmith · June 25

@Neoon said:

@AnthonySmith said:
Well, this is awkward

"Content not viewable in your region"

Must be UK

United Kondom yep

Mumbly · June 25

@AnthonySmith said: Well, this is awkward

"Content not viewable in your region"

Imgur is censored in North Korea UK.

teamacc · June 25

Will there be reports at end of month to indicate income vs spending?

AnthonySmith · June 25

@teamacc said:
Will there be reports at end of month to indicate income vs spending?

Well, to be honest with the immediate reaction to this, making me feel like a criminal running a scam, I am more inclined to just turn them off and scrap a bunch of plans.

I will sleep on it.

teamacc · June 25

@AnthonySmith said:

@teamacc said:
Will there be reports at end of month to indicate income vs spending?

Well, to be honest with the immediate reaction to this, making me feel like a criminal running a scam, I am more inclined to just turn them off and scrap a bunch of plans.

I will sleep on it.

To be fair I have no idea what ballpark of income there will be. If <10/month then it might not even be worth the current backlash. If >100/month then transparancy is required imo. Especially when deciding what community project to fund with the surplus.

Jab · June 25

Half of my ads not working even with uBlock set to off.
The message at the bottom still shows my ad blocker is preventing ads even if they load sometimes.

I understand ads, I can live with them, but that Privacy and cookie settings popping up every time I scroll to the bottom of page on desktop is driving me mad. I don't really need to see it every damn time.

AnthonySmith · June 25

@teamacc said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@teamacc said:
Will there be reports at end of month to indicate income vs spending?

Well, to be honest with the immediate reaction to this, making me feel like a criminal running a scam, I am more inclined to just turn them off and scrap a bunch of plans.

I will sleep on it.

To be fair I have no idea what ballpark of income there will be. If <10/month then it might not even be worth the current backlash. If >100/month then transparancy is required imo. Especially when deciding what community project to fund with the surplus.

This is after 6 hours or so of fairly standard traffic:

AnthonySmith · June 25

@Jab said: I understand ads, I can live with them, but that Privacy and cookie settings popping up every time I scroll to the bottom of page on desktop is driving me mad. I don't really need to see it every damn time.

same, unexpected, google and EU nonsense, its probably not going to work out... but this is how we find these things out

teamacc · June 25

@AnthonySmith said:

@teamacc said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@teamacc said:
Will there be reports at end of month to indicate income vs spending?

Well, to be honest with the immediate reaction to this, making me feel like a criminal running a scam, I am more inclined to just turn them off and scrap a bunch of plans.

I will sleep on it.

To be fair I have no idea what ballpark of income there will be. If <10/month then it might not even be worth the current backlash. If >100/month then transparancy is required imo. Especially when deciding what community project to fund with the surplus.

This is after 6 hours or so of fairly standard traffic:

So, only enabling it for not-logged-in users + some users that actively choose to support + there's some adblockers in this mix too earns about 10-20/month.

IMO just run the ads test for a month, collect feedback afterwards (unless ads break something, then collect during month)

AnthonySmith · June 25

@teamacc said: 10-20/month.

it might, on a good month

@Jab said: The message at the bottom still shows my ad blocker is preventing ads even if they load sometimes.

found that bug, fixed.

AnthonySmith · June 25

@Jab said: Privacy and cookie settings popping up every time I scroll to the bottom of page on desktop is driving me mad. I don't really need to see it every damn time.

>

Also fixed, I will find an alternative method, will probably get dinged and revenue stopped, or I might be misunderstanding the 8000 options.

MikeA · June 25

I enabled them and disabled uBlock for lowendspirit but don't see any. I do see a bunch of errors in dev console but don't know if it's related.

Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-9654762685286550. (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Status code: (null).

AnthonySmith · June 25

@MikeA said:
I enabled them and disabled uBlock for lowendspirit but don't see any. I do see a bunch of errors in dev console but don't know if it's related.

Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-9654762685286550. (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Status code: (null).

That just means ublock or dns level filtering is applying.

Honestly now I have added google ads while also hating how google has wormed its way in to every facit of every day life under the lie "Do no evil" I am really starting to feel like this was a mistake.

But I also did not want to professionally offend anyone by daring to offer paid adverts.

I probably just need to do what I need to do and accept some people willl be unhappy regardless of the direction.

dgc1980 · June 25

some time ago, I ran a site and offered ads to members and stuff at like $5 a month with a limit of 4 ads in the rotation, wrote my own little landing for them to upload ads to etc, the site was able to survive well with that, that way the ads we actually targeted and relevant to the community. maybe something like this would be better by seeing like "xyz vps for $7/yr" in a small rotation that than seeing an ad for "viagra for $1 a pill" etc

this is just an option, not a request, I do have ads disabled, but I did donate at one point of time

AnthonySmith · June 25

@dgc1980 said:
some time ago, I ran a site and offered ads to members and stuff at like $5 a month with a limit of 4 ads in the rotation, wrote my own little landing for them to upload ads to etc, the site was able to survive well with that, that way the ads we actually targeted and relevant to the community. maybe something like this would be better by seeing like "xyz vps for $7/yr" in a small rotation that than seeing an ad for "viagra for $1 a pill" etc

this is just an option, not a request, I do have ads disabled, but I did donate at one point of time

That's what LES used to have, then it went to donationbox, and all ads were removed, that box emptied out a while ago and people have been out of pocket since.

There was never any way that LES taking any payment for anything in any way was ever going to be 100% fine with 100% of the people here, it is what it is, I can only give options, the choice is ultimately everyone's own to make.

teamacc · June 25

@AnthonySmith said:

@dgc1980 said:
some time ago, I ran a site and offered ads to members and stuff at like $5 a month with a limit of 4 ads in the rotation, wrote my own little landing for them to upload ads to etc, the site was able to survive well with that, that way the ads we actually targeted and relevant to the community. maybe something like this would be better by seeing like "xyz vps for $7/yr" in a small rotation that than seeing an ad for "viagra for $1 a pill" etc

this is just an option, not a request, I do have ads disabled, but I did donate at one point of time

That's what LES used to have, then it went to donationbox, and all ads were removed, that box emptied out a while ago and people have been out of pocket since.

There was never any way that LES taking any payment for anything in any way was ever going to be 100% fine with 100% of the people here, it is what it is, I can only give options, the choice is ultimately everyone's own to make.

"Donate your TierHive tokens to LES by clicking here", add a bit of vendor lock-in :P

AnthonySmith · 12:12AM

@teamacc said:
@AnthonySmith said:

@dgc1980 said:
some time ago, I ran a site and offered ads to members and stuff at like $5 a month with a limit of 4 ads in the rotation, wrote my own little landing for them to upload ads to etc, the site was able to survive well with that, that way the ads we actually targeted and relevant to the community. maybe something like this would be better by seeing like "xyz vps for $7/yr" in a small rotation that than seeing an ad for "viagra for $1 a pill" etc

this is just an option, not a request, I do have ads disabled, but I did donate at one point of time

That's what LES used to have, then it went to donationbox, and all ads were removed, that box emptied out a while ago and people have been out of pocket since.

There was never any way that LES taking any payment for anything in any way was ever going to be 100% fine with 100% of the people here, it is what it is, I can only give options, the choice is ultimately everyone's own to make.

"Donate your TierHive tokens to LES by clicking here", add a bit of vendor lock-in :P

I am thinking of just turning supporter mode off , seems the most simple solution.

Edit: done

Not_Oles · 12:44AM

@AnthonySmith said:

@dgc1980 said:
some time ago, I ran a site and offered ads to members and stuff at like $5 a month with a limit of 4 ads in the rotation, wrote my own little landing for them to upload ads to etc, the site was able to survive well with that, that way the ads we actually targeted and relevant to the community. maybe something like this would be better by seeing like "xyz vps for $7/yr" in a small rotation that than seeing an ad for "viagra for $1 a pill" etc

this is just an option, not a request, I do have ads disabled, but I did donate at one point of time

That's what LES used to have, then it went to donationbox, and all ads were removed, that box emptied out a while ago and people have been out of pocket since.

There was never any way that LES taking any payment for anything in any way was ever going to be 100% fine with 100% of the people here, it is what it is, I can only give options, the choice is ultimately everyone's own to make.

Is there presently an option to contribute financially to LES?
Could we have an expense projection?

I would be delighted to contribute!

Thanks for considering!

Ympker · 1:41AM

I remember there was some platform where you could publicly display incoming/outgoing cashflows and project spending for public/community projects (probably it was integrated with bank account). Maybe that is what some people would like to see?

AnthonySmith · 2:14AM

It's fine I will just eat it, I will keep adverts for none logged in visitors only.

I will push the updates and changes asap so it is at least secure, drop a bunch of ideas and refocus on content.

If it's not going to work it's not going to work, the numbers are really so low now it's on life support as it is.

david3 · 3:56AM

It's a little surprising that anyone who dislikes ads hasn't installed ublock origin.

bikegremlin · 4:14AM

@AnthonySmith said:

@teamacc said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@teamacc said:
Will there be reports at end of month to indicate income vs spending?

Well, to be honest with the immediate reaction to this, making me feel like a criminal running a scam, I am more inclined to just turn them off and scrap a bunch of plans.

I will sleep on it.

To be fair I have no idea what ballpark of income there will be. If <10/month then it might not even be worth the current backlash. If >100/month then transparancy is required imo. Especially when deciding what community project to fund with the surplus.

This is after 6 hours or so of fairly standard traffic:

Based on my experience so far:

Give it at least a month. Algorithm needs time to figure out what ad(vertiser)s to connect the site with.

Even with my conservative Adsense setup (no over page and lowest advert frequency settings) revenue should (or at least could ) be better than that with decent traffic.

But it will need some time.

If the auto ads can't place siderail (on desktop) and one header advert, you could try adding an ad placeholder (adsense provides you with code for that - and you can set a minimum height so no content shifting while ads are loading or when they are blocked).

imok · 4:19AM

@AnthonySmith said:
It's fine I will just eat it, I will keep adverts for none logged in visitors only.

I will push the updates and changes asap so it is at least secure, drop a bunch of ideas and refocus on content.

If it's not going to work it's not going to work, the numbers are really so low now it's on life support as it is.

How long it lasted? 24 hours? I don't think it's enough time for a test.