How many would opt-into adsense ads, as a premium+ member?

[Justis]

Hey fellas,

The topic of SSL has been a huge thing on MC-Market recently, and although I believe most people are freaking out a bit too much all of the sudden, without real knowledge over what they're freaking out over, I do want SSL implemented as well; if only to ease the community's minds.
However, at the same time, I'd like to also put an equal amount of effort into coming up with ways to increase our monthly income as a site to compensate for the loss of adsense revenue that comes with switching to SSL.

To that end, I and an awesome user by the name of Jdsgames were talking, and he brought up the potential ability to allow premium+ users to opt into receiving the adsense ads that by default, they no longer have to see.

Our ads are not obtrusive; and personally, I'd enable them if it helped site income. However, one or two users enabling them wouldn't resolve anything.
That's why I've made this poll.

How many premium+ users here would enable ads if given the option to?
If you're not premium, would you opt into this, if you were to attain premium?

 

[Taafe]

Maybe we should also think about other ways to obtain income to support the site as well? I'm honestly not really fussed about ads, so long as they're not intrusive or malicious.

 

[Dudd]

I agree with what was said above. Ads are in no way a problem so long as they don't intrude on site browsing.

 

[Cal]

Possibly maybe a toned down version of the ads put onto the site? For instance just banner ads on the home screen and at the top of threads and removing sidebars.

 

[Settlements]

I feel many would post yes but in the end not actually commit

 

[Justis]

I feel many would post yes but in the end not actually commit

What if we gave premium members the option to turn ads off, as promised; but defaulted them to on upon upgrade?

Possibly maybe a toned down version of the ads put onto the site? For instance just banner ads on the home screen and at the top of threads and removing sidebars.

The sidebar ads are ads paid by users of this site; not adsense ads.
There's only one adsense ad at the top of threads and the home page.

Maybe we should also think about other ways to obtain income to support the site as well? I'm honestly not really fussed about ads, so long as they're not intrusive or malicious.

Adsense ads on SSL sites are SSL compliant as well, so no worries about maliciousness.

 

[Taafe]

What if we gave premium members the option to turn ads off, as promised; but defaulted them to on upon upgrade?

I support this option 100%

 

[Fire]

I personally wouldn't enable them. Mainly because I don't really like seeing ads, but tolerate them because they are needed to help support sites. However with MCM, Supreme + Pink name colour was my support. Which that $30 is far more than what MCM would have made through me seeing ads.

I dislike adsense especially. Since it tacks what I do, and shows me things that i've either already looked at and purchased, have no intention of looking at, or worse showing me things i've looked at, but can't really afford to buy.

If the time came Mick was that hard up he needed people like me to see ads, to earn a few cents to keep the site running, I'd rather just buy another name colour instead. However for those that don't mind ads as much, having them enabled by default would be a good idea. Just as long as the ability to disable them is retained.

 

[MrAniman2]

I can honestly say that I have blocked all ads (adsense and MCM hosted) and will not enable them!

Reason is quite simple but not many people will remember it...

There was a time when premium upgrade gave you "ads free experience" I believe was the term and this is why I purchased premium upgrade but then in one day ads were enabled for premium users and a bit later TOS were changed to say "adsense free experience". A lot of people were not happy about this and one person even got a screenshot showing old TOS but thread with all the proofs and people opinions were deleted by staff...and needless to say there were no announcements or explanations from staff team... I even tried personally talk to Mick but I was ignored.

I could donate $100 to the site without any hesitation if it would truly be necessary to keep it online but we all know it's not the case...

 

[Ivain]

I also use a full-strength adblocker as well as manually blocking all remaining ads. I usually only turn it off if I feel a site deserves it, and has not received financial support from me in some other way. With the recent price increases of stickies, I don't feel like I need to opt into any ads whatsoever.[DOUBLEPOST=1509709092][/DOUBLEPOST]

I personally wouldn't enable them. Mainly because I don't really like seeing ads, but tolerate because they are needed to help support sites. However with MCM, Supreme + Pink name colour was my support. Which that $30 is far more than what MCM would have made through me seeing ads.

I dislike adsense especially. Since it tacks what I do, and shows me things that i've either already looked at and purchased, have no intention of looking at, or worse showing me things i've looked at, but can't really afford to buy.

If the time came Mick was that hard up he needed people like me to see ads, to earn a few cents to keep the site running, I'd rather just buy another name colour instead. However for those that don't mind ads as much, having them enabled by default would be a good idea. Just as long as the ability to disable them is retained.

Tip for the trackers: Try Blur on PC, or Disconnect on mobile (not sure if it's on all platforms). These are tracker-blocking browser addons. It allows you to block stuff like the adsense tracker, and in case of the mobile one also save you data.[DOUBLEPOST=1509711569][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, I'm very curious about how essential adsense is for MCM's existence in the first place. I think sticky threads and sidebars generate more income than adsense ads at this point.

 

[Jdsgames]

I see a bunch of users complaining about two things primarily with this.

- Ad-free experience
- This was really targetting Adsense not user-based showcasing. I think the term should be redefined under the rank.
- This is mainly targetting users Willing to opt-in to the ads who originally did not want to opt-out with the upgrade.

- Adsense tracks what I do
- Most sites track what you do. Shopping sites check for your last few visits on other shopping sites to see what they should advertise to you. So I really don't get the problem with this one. Your ISP can technically track what you do to an extent already. You probably have your location turned on for your mobile device which guess what that tracks where you are.

So I really do not see the arguments being valid.

 

[Picturesque]

I feel like starting a one time fundraiser and/or a monthly type subscription of something special could help out with the costs. Let’s be completely realistic the people who will claim to opt in won’t actually. This is just my suggestion/comment.

 

[Ivain]

I see a bunch of users complaining about two things primarily with this.

- Ad-free experience
- This was really targetting Adsense not user-based showcasing. I think the term should be redefined under the rank.
- This is mainly targetting users Willing to opt-in to the ads who originally did not want to opt-out with the upgrade.

- Adsense tracks what I do
- Most sites track what you do. Shopping sites check for your last few visits on other shopping sites to see what they should advertise to you. So I really don't get the problem with this one. Your ISP can technically track what you do to an extent already. You probably have your location turned on for your mobile device which guess what that tracks where you are.

So I really do not see the arguments being valid.

You forgot the part where ads are bloody intrusive. And the fact that people paid for premium ranks to not get adsense, and I see no reason why anyone would want to opt in.

Also, there's a big difference between your local isp knowing what you do and google+facebook sending you targeted ads based on what you do online (which can be embarrassing). The first is not something that you can do anything about without using a VPN, and is not generally a problem (for me at least) because outside the US, there's lots of ISPs with basic respect for their clients.

The second is something I use tracker blockers for.
And honestly, I feel like asking for people who paid money in part to not see adsense to once again opt in to adsense is greedy as hell. If there IS financial trouble, I would like to know how this has come to be, and why opting in to adsense is the solution of choice.

 

[Walrus]

i personally wouldn't opt in, all upgraded users already see the banner ads that pay $30 a week to be there.
i'd rather donate some money or buy people name colors to support the site rather than pretend seeing some ads makes that much of a difference.