Last time I checked, adBlock is a welcomed thing and one of the most popular among Firefox and Chrome extensions. Now apple did it, and everybody is crying and said this would hurt publishers. We actually are only seeing this "Reader" feature in the desktop Safari, not MobileSafari (at least for now). There is also no App Store for desktop. So why this is nudging web publisher to App Store since there is no "Reader" on iPad/iPhone and no App Store on your desktop?
I don't see this too different from the "Popup Blocker" feature. Remember the days when popup window was the standard way to display ads. Now pretty much every browser comes with popup blocker.
It's just time to change how you build and place your advertisement. Don't be annoying, otherwise, there will be people rushing to get rid of the things people hate to please the users. There is no law against it.
> Now apple did it, and everybody is crying and said this would hurt publishers.
Not even that, Reader is not an ad blocker it's a reformatter, it's a built-in Readability and nothing more. And you have to see the page before you can even trigger readability, so really it's not like it's disappearing your ads.
> I don't see this too different from the "Popup Blocker" feature. Remember the days when popup window was the standard way to display ads. Now pretty much every browser comes with popup blocker.
In fact, Reader is much less anti-ads than popup blocking ever was.
I downloaded Safari 5 more or less as a routine update, but I must say I'm very pleasantly surprised by its speed and Reader. S5 rocks on Snow Leopard.
That said, S5 is still plagued by some of the problems I had with earlier versions - such as "completed 7 of 8 items" ... (I'm waiting), not logging in to my univ's network, etc. So Chrome it is, for now.
(It's basically a port of arc90's Readability to Chrome.) In a perfect world, it would do something similar to the Reader-esque lightbox styling, but it's proven to be pretty usable for me regardless.
Believe me when I say that you are _by far_ the minority. _By Far_. I run a web site with over 16,000 registered users. They use the web site regularly and I get countless emails from people telling me how much the site has helped them. And yet, less than 2% pay for a cheap upgrade which gives them a access to a heap of new features and some amazing downloads. I've had one donation _ever_ (in over five years) and every time I ask for support or offer membership upgrades I loose massive amounts of email subscribers.
Whilst it's true that my marketing skills (or lack thereof) are partially to blame for these reasonably pathetic results, it's also compelling empirical evidence that you are in the minority (less than 2%).
If it wasn't for the on site advertising, which barely covers hosting costs, I would have shut the site down years ago. It eats up way too much of my time as it is.
Nobody is going to pay for something they can get for free. You set an upper bound on the price when you gave your content away.
My guess is that the porn companies, which make you buy annoying subscriptions, make a lot more money that way than they would with some Google text ads. It's because they don't set the price at $0 and then ask for any amount of money. The set the price at $30 and ask for $30. Don't have $30? No soup for you.
A lot of what I'm selling is not given for free. And the point wasn't my lack of success, but the fact that you said you'd give your money to someone who asked for it.
I'm just saying that even if this was true (which, based on what you just said, is not the case) that you would be the minority by a long, long way.
I find the timing hilarious. Will Safari's Readability clone also block iAds? Can we get an add-on to block out annoying iAds in app store apps? Somehow I doubt it.
You'll note that Apple is already preempting this argument. Reader exists to offer clarity to the reading experience, removing "annoying ads and other visual distractions." iAds, on the other hand, is promoted as adding to a seamless user experience. Apple is bending over backwards to show that iAds are different -- not "annoying" like what we're used to, but something immersive and interesting.
Of course, much of this is marketing. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. An insightful article, overall.
Perhaps they'll eventually have iAds for the web and this is step one in their evil genius plan.
This also adds another dimension to the browser wars. Microsoft, Google and Apple all have browsers, all have ad platforms. Any of them could make their browser block out annoying Flash(y) ads and replace them with JPGs, smaller format ads, nothing or their own ads.
The browser with the best browsing experience wins, not the browser who follows standards religiously. Chrome is an excellent example, they're adding very important features that are getting them market share because standards alone are not sufficient for promoting the web as a platform.
Reformatting websites is not a new idea, but a new money dimension could make things interesting.
I don't see this too different from the "Popup Blocker" feature. Remember the days when popup window was the standard way to display ads. Now pretty much every browser comes with popup blocker.
It's just time to change how you build and place your advertisement. Don't be annoying, otherwise, there will be people rushing to get rid of the things people hate to please the users. There is no law against it.