I am an avid user of uBlock Origin on my browsers, and not because I "hate the site owners" but because I am privacy-conscious and also hate obtrusive advertising (I try my best to whitelist unobtrusive sites). uBlock allows me to do away with all of that and maintain my sanity on the web.
Today, when I was reading an article on Wired, I thought I'd try and disable my content blocker, as I had taken it for granted for what seemed like years. Here's what I saw:
That's right. In that second shot, there's a half-height advertisement, a banner with a free article counter and membership sale covering the other half, a cookie banner with an accessible "accept" button and what I assume is a labyrinth of cookie settings to disable any sort of ad personalization, an icon that indicates my browser blocker an auto-playing video in the background, and finally an obtrusive popup asking for your email address.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the reporting that Wired does and I believe their standpoints on various topics are noteworthy, however this is not what I believe the experience of anyone attempting to access journalism online should be.
I understand that this is a multifaceted issue, perhaps even every single one of those elements that I describe may lead to a heated debate. For starters, the issue of the sustainability of journalism in the age of the web, which seems to be the cause for nearly all of those obtrusive elements (advertising, paywalling, and perhaps newsletters). Also the cookie banner (or sometimes obscuring popup) that we see on nearly every site, and the issue of data privacy online.
I believe that it is possible for less obstructive and more respectful versions of resources such as this to exist. I shouldn't have to install a content blocker to access information on the web with peace of mind, as not even every internet user knows of such things. I should not be blocked out from journalism or any other sort of information, as not every user of the internet has the financial means to support every source they access. I should also, last but definitely not least, not have to click an obscured cookie options links and go through walls of legal language and options to make an informed decision about my personal data online.
I might seem like a choosing beggar at this point, but my sole aim of writing this is to ask, what do you think? Is this how you think the web should be? Or if not, how can we solve the underlying issues in better ways? For example, the Guardian has handled the paywall issue in a much more open and successful way, do you know of any other examples?
by abdulocracy http://bit.ly/2HBsmh1
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