After 3,600 Original Articles This Year On Linux/Open-Source, Let's Have A Holiday Special

[Michael]

Already got a lifetime sub, so I just sent another $100 your way as a combined Christmas and new baby gift.

Hope there's a Merry Christmas for you and the family.

Thanks, Merry Christmas!

[arQon]

Guess it's time to try and find my Paypal details from 20 years ago...

It's not surprising that this readership is adblocker-heavy, for sure. I don't block ads per se, but I do use NoScript, which has the same outcome but better. What IS surprising is that those using AdblockPlus etc don't have an exception for the site. That's just a dick move, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Shame you don't have a secondary way to make money from it (or "enough" money, I guess). Apparently you should have been born a pretty and unethical "influencer" instead. :/

[tuxayo]

I've said this before, but I will not buy premium as long as debianxfce is not allowed here.

What do you mean? I'm out of the loop.

[tuxayo]

You should rethink your business model Michael and find more ways of getting cash flow if it's that unstable. Think sponsors, business subscriptions, business services like custom benchmarking...

I hope sponsoring will not be necessary, to not loose in quality of the articles.

[gutigone]

It's not surprising that this readership is adblocker-heavy, for sure. I don't block ads per se, but I do use NoScript, which has the same outcome but better. What IS surprising is that those using AdblockPlus etc don't have an exception for the site. That's just a dick move, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

It's not a dick move to protect ourselves from the privacy destroy adverts. Seriously, look it up. 99% of adverts attempt to track everything you do, building up big databases - there's a reason why Phoronix and other sites are forced to show "we care about your privacy" cookie banner crap - because of how they work. Seriously, next time the banner pops up on Phoronix, click the button to see just how many things it wants to use - it's maddening.

[arQon]

Seriously, look it up.

No need - did you not see the part about NoScript right there in my post?

If you're worried that a *small, very limited* allow list will really harm your privacy, then you should care enough to better educate yourself about what tools are available to you and how you can use them, rather than just copping out and considering that an adequate response to every scenario, even when a site that you care about is suffering for it and a VERY SMALL amount of effort on your part would allow both sides to come out on top. (To be clear, that's "You" and "Michael" - the industrial ad complex can go f**k themselves :P).

Yes, it's a pain in ass to do it, but it should only take you a few minutes and you get more than that much value out of the site, I'm sure.
Yes, you DO have a genuine right to be concerned, and to object to the morally-bankrupt determination to grab what SHOULD be your personal information and nobody else's business.
But it's not an all-or-nothing game, and being upset (however understandably) by the ad industry's practices to use those as an excuse to just block everything is LAZY. We are TECHNICAL people, dammit! If we can spend hours getting GPU Passthrough working on our patched kernels running on our custom-built PCs, how do we justify just going "meh, can't be bothered" to spending 5 minutes allowing a domain to show you an ad that unless you actually click on it will gather none of your precious secrets and not leave a trace on your machine tomorrow? THAT'S the part I'm objecting to.

Besides, the way I see it, it's MUCH better - and certainly much more satisfying :P - to have those assholes pay Michael but still get none of my data that they were hoping for than it is to just block them out entirely. And THAT is a fair and equitable arrangement: they get to show me an ad - and THAT'S ALL, and they pay Michael for the opportunity to do so, and I get to read the site for free. We ALL win. Your current position though is simply "Screw everyone else, I'm getting mine and you can all suck it". Which, yeah, I'm fine with wrt to the advertisers, but is very much not cool wrt Michael.

So, what do you say - are you willing to fix your browser setup and help him out? AND get the added bonuses of Moral High Ground (+1) and Outsmarting The Assholes (+3)? Come on, you know you want at least that second one... :P

[fguerraz]

Just an opition here: I have paid in the past, but then I realised it was supporting your business model, which I do not agree with, mostly because I was paying for getting tracked (by you and advertiser because I would get logged out annoyingly often).
I'll happily pay if you drop the ad-based business alltogether.
Again, I'm not telling you what to do, just expressing preference. If you paywall this site, I'll move on, no hard feelings.

[b8e5n]

Finally made my contribution, after ~10 years of fidelity. Thanks for the good work michael!

[mwgarcia]

Michael, what do you think of a Patreon-like tiered subscriptions? Make it so that you'll give more weight to requests from higher tiers. I'm pretty sure there are a couple of well-off users in here that make lucrative careers staying on top of Linux/FOSS

[tuxayo]

What IS surprising is that those using AdblockPlus etc don't have an exception for the site. That's just a dick move, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
:/

It's perfectly understandable to block advertising, it's a
- toxic
- mass spying
- misleading (e.g. greenwashing)
- privacy and law violating industry.
Many ads are so deceptive and some are even malware in addition of being resource intensive. And it's a hidden cost, because we are actually paying due to malware. A bigger car, new phone sooner and other stuff that we didn't know we need, or not.

So we should go towards having a culture of paying for stuff even when we don't have to. Especially when blocking advertisement. Because the money saved by shielding oneself from ads should be used to pay for what we read, watch, listen to. It doesn't mean paying for everything micro amounts because we will waste a lot in fees. Just elect few things that need funding and set up recurring donations. We are a lot and not everyone will pick the same things, we just have to ensure to fund things that are in need.

Bonus: it will be more efficient due to less intermediaries.