DaniWeb is now ad-free!!

[Dani]

As of today, DaniWeb offers a completely ad-free experience to sponsors!! What do you think? Is it enough to sway you to donate $5/mo for all the benefits you get?

[JamesCherrill]

No.

[rproffitt]

I thought I had shared a thought here so here goes again.

Just a few days ago an ad popped up for a performance in my town that I didn't know or hear about from others so I clicked through to learn more. Might go to that one.

Pretty rare to see something that I'll click on so in the years here I think I've clicked on two ads. So much for all that talk and articles about targetted advertising on the web.

As a mod I think I want to see what most see. Or if I pay I need to toggle it on/off which is more work for you.

If you want to see the present mood on pay to play or such, look up Fallout 1st such as https://falloutfirst.com/ and more on Reddit. I'm not saying it's a good or bad idea, but put on your fire suit.

[Dani]

I thought I had shared a thought here so here goes again.

Are your posts not going through for some reason? Grr, I'm sorry.

Yeah, unfortunately the landscape of the publishing industry today is that the ad-supported model just doesn't work anymore. Publishers pretty much require an additional revenue stream outside of advertising to survive in today's landscape. Advertising is great supplemental revenue, but it just doesn't pay the server bills on its own. I've been struggling really hard to break even just on our server costs, nevermind pay for things like rent and food.

For DaniWeb, my model outside of advertising is the idea of paying to connect one-on-one with other targeted users for the purposes of business networking, being connected with users most likely to be able to help you with your tech question, etc. We're now giving an ad-free experience to those people who choose to sponsor as an additional benefit.

I really have no clue what you're trying to insinuate from the link to Fallout, nor do I fully understand what they're trying to get at, but at the end of this long page of F-Yous is a link to donate to pay their hosting fees, of which they've received a non-negligible amount of money. Sooooo how is that any different from what I'm trying to do?

[Dani]

If you want to see the present mood on pay to play or such

But is it really pay-to-play? DaniWeb has always been a commmunity forum, for the past 18+ years. It's always been free to participate in the forums, and it is continuing to be free. Ads used to pay the bills. That's no longer the case. So, in an effort to find another revenue model, I built out new functionality I am choosing to ask for donations for.

Stack Overflow wasn't able to make it work with advertising, so they built out the Stack Overflow Careers job boards and they charge for those. How is that any different?

[Dani]

As a mod I think I want to see what most see. Or if I pay I need to toggle it on/off which is more work for you.

As a mod, you experience DaniWeb very differently from what most other see. As you navigate the site, you see deleted posts along with the reasons they've been deleted. You see buttons and tools to edit posts and members. You see full member profiles while most others see more incomplete profiles. And you have lots of other additional functionality throughout. You get the ability to connect with other members without having to go through the paywall and you don't even see the existance of that paywall.

For those that contribute by donating, they get different benefits. They get to see an ad-free experience, and they, just as mods, get the ability to connect via user search without a paywall.

Taking it a step further, the entire DaniWeb experience is rather customized for each individual person. Everyone sees a different listing of topics when browsing a forum (unless they remove the Recommended filter). Everyone sees a different listing of cards on the homepage. Throughout the site, the experince is tailored to the individual user, so especially as a mod, you haven't ever been seeing what most see.

[rproffitt]

as a mod, you haven't ever been seeing what most see.

Which is why I use more than one browser. One is logged out so I get a better picture of what others are seeing.

And here is my apology if I upset you in any way. I truly hope this new feature helps those that want it. That out of the way, finding out what people want is as hard or harder than finding out what your puppy wants.

[Dani]

You didn’t upset me at all! Sorry if I gave you that impression. Lack of emotions being perceived on the interwebs ‘n’ all.

At the end of the day, it really is me grasping at straws trying to come up with something I can charge users or businesses for. First it was pay $5 and be matched with 5 users likely to answer your questions. Then it was free one on one connections within our business networking / classified engine included for the same $5. Now it’s an ad-free experience browsing the forums included for the same $5. What else can I possibly sell that might pique interest?!?!

I just felt it was amusing that at the bottom of the page you linked to was them asking for money point blank to pay THEIR costs.

[jeffcogswell]

This is a topic near-and-dear to my heart. Although my day job is development, I supplement my income through writing. Like other people, ads drive my crazy. Yet, in the past ads were what allowed sites to pay me quite nicely to write for them. Now we see sites giving 3 or 4 "free" articles per month, after which you have to subscribe. Or we see sites pop up a huge message asking us to disable our ad blockers to continue. People hate ads; and now ads aren't working anymore. I don't actually subscribe to any online magazines, so I only get to read their articles a couple times a month. But one thing I do take part in is patreon. I follow a lot of Youtube people, and now I donate between $5 and $10 per month to many of them on their patreon page. Their content is still free for everyone, but by donating through patreon, often I get content before other people. Or just a warm fuzzy feel-good feeling that I'm helping out. So long story short, I'd be all for a $5 per month, provided the content is still open and free for everyone; maybe the $5 could provide some additional perks (not sure what though...).