That Piece Of Crap Hewlett-Packard Ad

[crazycheese]

I actually have some constructive criticism in this debate, too. How about you make the premium programme actually worth something?

For example, I can imagine a similar model to lwn. All your benchmark articles will be available to premium users right away, but other users or guests have to wait a week until the article is available to them. This wouldn't make much sense with the shorter news items, as they're largely irrelevant after a week, but I think it could be useful with the benchmarks. Of course, you have to combine this feature with a friendly site wide login system, but I'm sure you're more than capable of implementing one.

Then, the people who really care about benchmarks would actually have a good reason to pay $10 for a three months subscription, which is really not a lot.

I hate LWN model. I am ok to watch Ads if I can read articles. I'm very very thankful to Michael for not setting people like me to wait several weeks, but instead we can discuss too. Currently I can't afford premium in long term. I'm OK with that.
Cause with your model, you will be paying anyway - either read article now and watch Ads; or read article when its totally outdated and has no sense.
If you don't want Ads - go subscribe premium please. Go now, ok? Or see you in a week?

[Michael]

...Also, you don't get money by having your ads load, you get money from clicks....

Wrong. I'm paid on most ads for them simply loading.

[V!NCENT]

Or, you do it like Slashdot; reward users with the option of disabling ads if they contribute to the site.

This could be submitting a lot of news that gets approved, helping moderation, participate it automated benchmarking, etc...

Then Phoronix will naturaly increase coverage and allows you to work on different areas as well.

[susikala]

I actually have some constructive criticism in this debate, too. How about you make the premium programme actually worth something?

For example, I can imagine a similar model to lwn. All your benchmark articles will be available to premium users right away, but other users or guests have to wait a week until the article is available to them. This wouldn't make much sense with the shorter news items, as they're largely irrelevant after a week, but I think it could be useful with the benchmarks. Of course, you have to combine this feature with a friendly site wide login system, but I'm sure you're more than capable of implementing one.

Then, the people who really care about benchmarks would actually have a good reason to pay $10 for a three months subscription, which is really not a lot. And they'd be actually getting something out of it. For me, as I wrote before, this would be irrelevant as I'm not interested in benchmarks, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are enough users willing to pay. The users who don't care would have the added plus that they don't have to use adblock here as there would be no ads, if this works.

I believe websites should be ad free and users shouldn't depend on installing software to block ads. The main reason for this is that I want to be able to surf a site from everywhere and with anything, and not just from my personal computer using my browser.

Another idea is to maybe make the premium programme a bit more flexible. Instead of asking for $10 three months, let users set their price. The Humble Indie Bundles have served to prove that in such a situation, there are more than enough people willing to donate enough (and we're looking at a much lower, albeit monthly, average of $3+1/3 dollars).

[darkbasic]

If you knock on the door of non tracking ad supplyers, you'll find me seeing your ads again...

+1

(I am phoronix premium but I HAVE to see the ads anyway because IT DOES NOT WORK)

[V!NCENT]

I don't see it and you know why? Not because I have ad blocking software. Oh no... It's because I have an anti-track system installed that disables shit like Collective media for example.

If you knock on the door of non tracking ad supplyers, you'll find me seeing your ads again...

[Yfrwlf]

This article made me wish I was drinking milk so I could have blown some out of my nose upon laughing.

Seriously, your posts raving about supporting your ads are annoying, and the ads themselves are even more annoying. You don't gain support by telling everyone something everyone hates is cool. They'll just laugh, because everyone knows it's B.S..

How about instead you do the opposite, and tone down your ads. Remove or make them less annoying. ESPECIALLY remove the stupid double-underlined word link ads. No, I DON'T want to buy the random product that popped up when I accidentally highlighted "laptop". :P

Your website is actually one of the reasons I ALWAYS install adblock, lol. Not the only reason, but close!

Also, you don't get money by having your ads load, you get money from clicks, and there are many readers who would never ever click on an ad regardless of whether or not that ad loaded, myself being one of them. You don't get genuine real factual information from sales pitches, you get it from research.

[dotancohen]

I don't care about Michael's lifestyle, that's his thing and has nothing to do with this site. To be honest, I don't care the least bit about benchmarking, either.

I don't care to _read_ about benchmarking, but I most certainly want the benchmarking to be done. That is the point of Phoronix. It's not for casual users to say "Ubuntu N is X% slower than Ubuntu N-1" but rather to highlight to the kernel and distro devs that unrestricted feature creep have a negative side effects.

If the kernel devs and distro devs were doing the benchmarking, fixing regressions and not blogging about it there would be no problem. As it is, it seems that without Michael _nobody_ would be tracking Linux power and performance regressions.

[NomadDemon]

i have important question

do you get money just for showing me add, or i need to click it?
if i need to click it, to give you money, it doesnt matter that i see ads or not, iam not interested in ANY adds, period.

correct me if iam wrong.

[dotancohen]

I honestly don't think I have EVER seen Michael this mad... Although, he sure has a right to be, and I admire his use of the f-bomb in an article

This is quite the reason for _not_ overusing profanity. The typical internet journalist^W^W blogger overuses profanity to the point where it has no meaning. By having _never_ used such a word on Phoronix before, Michael is now free to exclaim his anger and frustration with such language. Thus, whereas most bloggers paint themselves into a corner with the F-word, Michel can be expressive with it.

Good work!