Once upon a time, there was so much advertising demand on the web that a site (like Urbansurvival) could pay basic expenses (server farm, hosting DNS, SSL and that whole litany) with a few directly sold ads.
Then the Web Got Big. Suddenly there were ads everywhere. And with it – so much visual clutter and popup B S that the web became distracting. Which drove to some extent, the development of apps. Seeing how this flows as a business model evolving?
OK – point is that at age 74 I don’t feel like supporting apps because it sort of misses the whole point of the web. Maybe that’s just me.
Thing is, there is a light load of Amazon Affiliate links on this site along with some ads Google AdSense provides. I’m not throwing on a “lot of ads.”
Now let’s be honest about ad money. In May 2023, our ads brought in a whopping $9.83 per day (MTD). This from one of the older sites on the web, which shares a lot of useful information including a lot of prepping, financial news and perspectives including (especially!) long wave economics and where this old world is heading.
I think there is value here.
How to Whitelist
There are three general classes of how Whitelisting takes place.
- Use an Adblocker (like AdBlock Plus). Go into whatever your ad blocker is and follow their steps to whitelist a site.
- Some Browsers block ads. Microsoft Edge for example, has a setup for “tracking prevention.” Depending on site, the Basic setting should always work to allow ads. The “Balanced” setting should let Urban ads on, but block ads on more aggressive sites. The Strict setting should stop all advertising on most sites. But our popup may appear.
- Then there are some Browser plug-ins. Their operation is unique to product so off to support if your whitelisting takes more than a click or two.
Some Personal Philosophy
I have a mixed feeling about the web and money. For example, we hold that information should be fairly priced. Between UrbanSurvival and Peoplenomics.com I put about 50-60 hours a week into generating web content. All-in, subscribers and ads, the total revenue for all this work is less – a lot less – than our combined Social Security. Labor of love and sharing.
With A.I. out now, we figure Human-Generated Content should be honored. And ad whitelisting is one way to do that.
Another is subscribing to our Peoplenomics.com website. There are zero ads there.
It’s also $40 bucks a year – but here’s another interesting revenue discussion.
The price of Peoplenomics hasn’t changed since 2000. Just on Inflation alone, we should raise our rate to $71.93 using the Minneapolis Fed inflation calculator. Pretty amazing, huh?
While almost every other website has installed paywalls for all their good stuff, only the Peoplenomics part of our work is treated like premium content. We may be fools, but when the global economy blows up, we will have remained a voice of reason for 25-years.
A word about corporate trackers. I don’t mind them terribly much.
Yes, they are some additional “visual clutter” but if your control of attention is so weak that you can’t focus on an article and get drawn off-point so easily, might I suggest you work on developing some laser-like focus skills?
Wife Elaine and I go through this all the time: She is a “more or less happening” person. I’m over (so’s my son G2) in the laser focus, always on mission mindset.
See the Big Hint the Web offers in self-development?
If you can’t keep your eyes off ads, then start setting timers and objectives for your daily web use. If you don’t, you will end up (stupidly) making OTHER people rich by creating FREE “content” for them. See Facebook and Twitter have always felt a little “scammy” to me. They give people – who can’t focus on their task or article read – a way to get lost, draw ’em into minutia and creating more content for weak-willed joiners. This is the cesspool from which Woke crawled out of the mire.
Back on point, sometimes you find out “interesting shit” in the ads. I like them because unlike some people, I’m in charge of my head – which means my agenda, timeline, and mood. Weekend mornings, web cruising may find a new tool at Harbor Freight, or something useful.
But the rest of the time, I can just “turn it off.” Mental discipline.
We even go so far as to ensure out website is now slowed by ad loading. We do this because we enjoy your visiting the site and hope you get something from it, too.
If you’d like to improve your focus – yet still keep some ad options open – we’d recommend an article on the Data Driven Investor site: 9 Websites That Will Improve Your Focus and Increase Productivity | by Jerry Keszka as a dandy.
When the “web was new” (yes, there was a pre-web time) Old Men of the Web (like me) didn’t worry too much about things like ad blockers. But now, I’d suggest, if you get all worked up over seeing a few ads (unless you fly into a rage walking by a newsstand) you may have a related learning and growth opportunity in focus and concentration.
Plus, while you’re at it, developing an uncompromising stance on making Technolgy work for you instead of the other way around.
Social Media is a monster time sink and the web could use more useful content-oriented sites like this one and a lot fewer ego-clutter of Social. Adblocking matters less here than other places, I can promise you that.
george@ure.net