Ads, Privacy options and forced participation?

[Eddy Currents]

I haven't posted here for a while due to the constant bombardment of ads but still look in occasionally and it just seems to be getting worse. The pages I see are a page full of ads with a little bit of content instead of the other way around



Has admin tried to use the site as a non-subscriber member / guest?

Also this is my privacy option for private messaging...

And yet my inbox is full of messages like this...

I get that admin can override members privacy settings, but surely that should only be used for emergency updates, and not to try to force members to participate in threads so you can earn £££ being an Amazon associate??? or to ask if I have ever worked in a tile shop!

Ads have made this site pretty much unusable with 5/6+ ads in different positions and sponsors and popups all on a single page, which are very intrusive along with the full page ad blocker detection, and now ads and sponsors are not enough, you are ignoring members privacy settings to make £££???

 

[snowhead]

I keep getting a message come up when I first log in that I use Adblocking and need to disable it.
It won't let me view any thread with it on.

Today is different for some reason, first time I've got this far as I normally move on and don't come back for a while, same thing on the Plumbing site.

 

[SJD]

Tim Harford wrote some excellent articles about the enshittification of the internet and applications, and how many applications end up down this route in an attempt to extract more and more revenue from them. I recall that Facebook was used as one of the examples. Wikipedia now has a page on this, with lots of references including one of Tim's articles.

 

[loz2754]

enshittification

Reading this word has made today worthwhile!

 

[littlespark]

Many of these messages are just dan “trying things out” and are not a constant barrage.

This is also an income for Dan, I don’t think he has a full time job, so I expect a little bit of him being a salesman.


You don’t have to read the DMs, or act on them.

 

[Lou]

This is dans full time job and at the moment he is doing a lot of testing and such to make the forums better for everyone. It is a lot of coding, writing and just trying things in general as google changed the way they work. I can understand it is very frustrating at times, but it wont last forever. We just need to find that sweet spot. @Dan Is still recovering from quite a serious operation last summer too.

I know it is annoying but it won't be forever.

 

[Dan]

I haven't posted here for a while due to the constant bombardment of ads but still look in occasionally and it just seems to be getting worse. The pages I see are a page full of ads with a little bit of content instead of the other way around

View attachment 117099

Has admin tried to use the site as a non-subscriber member / guest?

Also this is my privacy option for private messaging...

View attachment 117098

And yet my inbox is full of messages like this...

View attachment 117097

I get that admin can override members privacy settings, but surely that should only be used for emergency updates, and not to try to force members to participate in threads so you can earn £££ being an Amazon associate??? or to ask if I have ever worked in a tile shop!

Ads have made this site pretty much unusable with 5/6+ ads in different positions and sponsors and popups all on a single page, which are very intrusive along with the full page ad blocker detection, and now ads and sponsors are not enough, you are ignoring members privacy settings to make £££???

Google is testing things. You're viewing on a desktop there so you have extra side rail ads. A sticky footer ad. And a vignette (pop up) which are all part of googles auto ads system which is being tested on 50% of traffic and has 2 months left before results become reliable.

So just gang in there mate.

Never heard my forums being accused of forcing participations though!

Nobody is forcing anybody to register. You can have your account erased if you want so it's a choice having one. But if you do have one, join in. Because a forum thrives on content. The more you get involved in the more you will get back from it.


I'm on many forums and this is the best out of all of them.