You may have noticed a change in our consent management system (That popup you get on all websites that asks for cookie permissions). Now you can no longer reject all cookies AND continue on to the site. Also, if ads can’t be displayed on your device then you won’t be allowed access to the site.
Why we’ve made this change
We know this change will annoy some people. Fair enough. Nobody cheers when a website gets stricter about ads, cookies or paywalls. But here’s the plain truth: Singletrack only works if the people using it help pay for it in one of two ways.
They either subscribe, or they allow advertising to support their free access.
That’s the deal. It’s always been the basic economics of publishing on the web, and it’s even more true now than it used to be.
The problem we can’t ignore any longer
Making Singletrack is not free. Writers, editors, photographers, developers, servers, moderation, tech support and all the invisible bits in the background cost money every month. For subscribers, that support is direct. For non-subscribers, it comes from advertising. What no longer works is a third route: reading the site while blocking the ads that fund it.
At the moment, around 45,000 of our 300,000 monthly unique users are blocking ads in some way. That is a big enough number to have a real effect. It means a sizeable chunk of our audience is using the site without contributing through either of the two models that keep it alive.
That’s not sustainable, and if we ignore it, we’re effectively asking paying members and ad-tolerant readers to carry everyone else.
Why we’ve introduced a harder line
So yes, we’ve made the system firmer.
If you want to use the site for free, ads need to be able to load. If you don’t want ads or tracking, there is now a paid annual option that gives you access without them.
That is the cleanest and fairest version of the choice.
- Free access means advertising supports the content
- Paid access means your subscription supports the content
What we can’t keep offering is free access where neither of those things happens.
Not everyone is doing this deliberately
It’s also worth saying that we know not everyone who hits this wall has knowingly installed an ad blocker.
Some browsers, privacy extensions, security tools or network settings block advertising automatically. In some cases, people may have no idea their setup is preventing ads from loading at all.
So if that’s you, this isn’t us accusing you of trying to dodge the system. It just means the site can’t detect the advertising it relies on to provide free access.
Why we think this is fair
We don’t expect everyone to like this. But we do think it’s fair.
It’s fair to the people who pay for subscriptions. It’s fair to the readers who accept ads in exchange for free access. And it’s fair to us as the people paying to produce, host and maintain the content in the first place.
Independent publishing only survives if it is actually funded. That may sound obvious, but on the modern web it apparently needs saying out loud.
The simple version
If you want Singletrack for free, please allow the ads that pay for it. If you don’t want ads, we completely understand — but in that case, we need you to support the site directly instead.
You may not love that choice, but we hope you can at least understand why we’ve had to make it.