The ads are killing me on here.
Far to many trackers and Firefox blocks evetything.
Cheers for now. STW will have to go on the back burner for a bit.
RT
taking-a-break
Giving us two fingers?
‘Yet another place where ads are used as an incentive to make you pay more. When will this culture of ads **** off? The only purpose they serve is to piss people off! No-one buys anything advertised by a punishment ad! 😡😡😡
Yep, I dont even load it up at work anymore because it wont open unless I turn off adblocker, it's almost completely unusable on my macbook as well so it's rare I even look of an evening.
‘Yet another place where ads are used as an incentive to make you pay more. When will this culture of ads **** off? The only purpose they serve is to piss people off! No-one buys anything advertised by a punishment ad! 😡😡😡
But the site gets revenue and that is what keeps its infrastructure alive along with us paying punters.
If all the free members clear off the site will die.
If the advertising revenue doesn't match the gap between full member income and operating costs the site will die
More fairly (imo) the advertising is not there to incentivise someone to pay it is there because some people choose not to pay.
I pay because I value STW and the articles enough to shell out a small amount each year. If my screen was smashed with ads I might feel differently as a paying member.
If I got value from the site but not enough to pay then I would accept I have to live with the ads or stop using the site. This is my approach to road.cc. I suspect this place is equally ugly with the ads as that.
If the ads go too far then users go.
If they don't go far enough then the site goes.
#redthunder - I hope you come back for Inktober!
(And yes the site is unusable for non-members, I no longer share posts with friends or family as it generates so much frustration and anger.)
Yeah the ads make me want to go willfully blind, it's like a throwback to the 90s getting your pc riddled with adware visiting here. I'm against ads on all platforms and most of my phone apps are custom APKs with no ads built in as well as other features, Facebook, Instagram, tiktok, reddit, Spotify premium, strava premium for free etc.
I've managed to find a way of accessing the site without ads as a free member but have suffered some clunky UI as a result, but hey it's worth it. Everytime I forget to use it in quickly reminded it's worth the hassle of messing about to avoid them
An annual digital sub is 30.99 or £0.60/week.
More fairly (imo) the advertising is not there to incentivise someone to pay it is there because some people choose not to pay.
Same thing isn’t it? You know what I’m saying, they serve no other purpose other than being ****ing annoying. So you pay to get rid of them. STW does give extras on top of the killing of adverts, so its not quite the same as, for example, ITVX, but the ads are still just used as an irritant.
As Mark says above. £31 for a year. £0.60 per week. Less than 10p per day.
Keeps this forum rolling, keeps the community alive and keeps all those good for nothing journos in a job.
Having seen the slow demise of my previous internet home (Boards Magazines Forum) I am more than happy to pay for a digital subscription to keep this ship afloat.
I'm still a paid member but it's not worth it if the fun has gone out of the forum. You can tell people are staying away. I used to be logged in all day at work and now I don't bother.
I know a balance has to be struck but making the user experience miserable will just drive people away, not convert them into paid members.
Even without the ads there's the broken formatting, random text colours and font sizes. Half the time I type something, hit 'add reply', get the spinning blue wheel and then nothing. No post, just a waste of time.
The whole thing feels borked.
An annual digital sub is 30.99 or £0.60/week.
Yet I've had to fully cancel my 'paused' magazine + digital subscription before I get any option to do a digital subscription....
I am back at that place where I'm torn over wether to subscribe or not. It's been 18 months of fundraising and more, finally the forum has improved, but it's slowing down in numbers of posters and interactions so much I'm wondering if it's worth it anymore.
Same thing isn’t it? You know what I’m saying, they serve no other purpose other than being ****ing annoying.
I totally get the perception from the user side but there is a critical purpose that is not about annoying people.
It's the NO purpose (my emphasis) that I thought was unfair.
The useful purpose is providing STW with an income indirectly from those who choose to visit the site and do not pay for a sub.
The user is still paying nothing but the site is still getting paid.
I'm sure the ads are annoying and I don't know what value they generate directly or indirectly for the advertisers but for STW the cash they get from them is part of the site's survival, without them everyone would have to pay or the site would close.
So eatmorepizza your solution is for the site to be entirely funded by the subscribers like me, whilst you browse for free?
I can't use the site on my PC as it says I'm using an ad blocker even when it's definitely disabled - so I'm left with just my phone screen full of adverts.
The result is that I come here much less often, and because the post numbers are seemingly dwindling, anyway, I suspect I will visit here less and less.
It's a shame.
I get the need to monetise non-subscribers in some way, and also the irritant/incentivisation angle.
But through a combination of shonkiness, the irritant reducing the participation, and other factors including toxicity of some posters, to me there isn't the sense of community there was and that's what will I'm afraid kill this in the end.
(JV, bought paper mag issue 2, subscriber since, helped with bike builds in the past when needed, paid car tax for a year for the car this community donated to a member in significant need, so I don't consider myself a freeloader overall. But I dropped it a year ago because of the above. 25000 odd posts and 10/10 fwiw)
As flounces go this is a 1/10!! 🤣🤣
Far to many trackers and Firefox blocks evetything.
If Firefox is blocking everything then what's the issue?
Genuine question.
Ultimately, STW is a business. It has to pay actual salaries or the lights go out.
I have a high degree of confidence that the ads aren't deliberately placed to be annoying in order to bully people into subscribing. Not least because that would be a bloody stupid thing to do, and for any of Mark's other perceived or actual faults "bloody stupid" is not one of them.
Mark is on record as saying that if he could afford to switch them off, he would do. He hates them at least as much as we do, but they're a necessary evil. You can argue "it doesn't work" all you like but it plainly does or it wouldn't exist. Advertisers aren't going to invest vast amounts of money in advertising if they didn't see a return. That's even more bloody stupid.
but it's slowing down in numbers of posters and interactions so much I'm wondering if it's worth it anymore.
Very much this, I've cancelled my auto renewal & will see what I feel like when renewal time comes round.
The programmatic ads (not the ones from bike brands that we sell directly and don’t track anything because they are just images) earn us around 40k/ year. Last year we made a profit of around £10k. I can’t turn them off just yet.
that said I’ve just adjusted some things at our end and requested that ads within content are dialed down by around 25 %.
Stw seems to have one of the highest numbers of partners who share the cookie data. Iirc it's 1700 affiliates.
Just how many obscure star wars t shirt suppliers and cable free ergonomic mouse sellers are left trading in 2026?
Finally the forum has improved, but it's slowing down in numbers of posters and interactions so much I'm wondering if it's worth it anymore.
Yeah me too.
I've been a paid up member on here from very near to the beginning and since the back end of last year have just totally lost interest in the place.
Used to be that the first thing I did in the morning was look on here. Then id get back from a ride, post up some pictures and chat shit about bikes for the rest of the day.
Now it just seems like there's only a few folks still doing that and it's just not worth paying for anymore FOR ME.
It also doesn't help that someone that has nowt to do with STW is seemingly always shouting down anyone that dare the express their thoughts on it all.
It's a shame it appears to be all dieing but again FOR ME I'm not convinced I'll renew again.
I'll maybe look in every now and again to see if things have picked up after my membership has run out but for now I'm on the side of it's something I can live without paying for.
Subtle.
But recognised by the shouter downer.😉
Don't deluded yourself though you're only a very small part of my loss of interest.
If things pick up and shit works well I'll gladly pay a membership fee again.
I was a free member for years, and have been (and intend to remain) a paying member for 2-3 years now. I think it’s well worth the money.
Occasionally I get logged out and get to see the experience of a free member. I agree it’s borderline unusable. If it had been like that when I first started, I doubt I would have stayed.
We use the exact same ad system as road.cc. It was Tony there that put me in to Sportsnetwork. They are a gateway to the ads you see. The number of cookie options you see in the pop up covers all possible sources of ads. That’s how it has to work. It’s no different to other media sites that run ads. There’s thousands of possible ad sources in the programmatic markets. Consent doesn’t mean you get thousands of cookies. It just means if an ad comes through the system from one of these networks that it can appear because you have already given consent.
Just to address the perceived traffic issue. Traffic is stable at the moment and hasn’t really changed much in the last 6 months. In fact here’s the situation right now on Saturday night, the quietest part of the week. 
We use the exact same ad system as road.cc
I find that astonishing.
You really don't get it.
You're basically adding your own buckets of water to your own sinking ship.
It was your free members who made the content here a worthwhile read. And your ridiculous "Ads or pay up" attitude has basically killed off what you had left of that.
In all honesty very very little here is even worth reading anymore. Certainly not worth persevering with the sheer amount of intrusive ads thrown at us free members in order to read even just one page of a thread. Content within the forum is just not worth paying a subscription for with stale replies from the same few full members all from a middle aged and older demographic.
Obnoxious and condescending replies towards other users when they see a "free member" moniker or low post count doesn't make for a welcoming experience. and Ironically a couple of the worst offenders of this seem to be in with the woodwork to some capacity.
I'm still a paid member but it's not worth it if the fun has gone out of the forum. You can tell people are staying away. I used to be logged in all day at work and now I don't bother.
I know a balance has to be struck but making the user experience miserable will just drive people away, not convert them into paid members.
Even without the ads there's the broken formatting, random text colours and font sizes. Half the time I type something, hit 'add reply', get the spinning blue wheel and then nothing. No post, just a waste of time.
The whole thing feels borked.
In all honesty very very little here is even worth reading anymore.
And yet here you are……
I’m a paid member, I regard it as good value and forum works fine on iPhone, MacBook and work pc.
I've cancelled my auto renewal & will see what I feel like when renewal time comes round.
I did that last year and forgot about it until my sub expired, lasted 3 days before resubscribing and then paid twice, payment system broke so I ended up with 2 outgoing payments. (I emailed subs on Friday so they haven't had a chance to respond yet so pitch forks at ease).
(I emailed subs on Friday so they haven't had a chance to respond yet so pitch forks at ease).
What about my burning torch? The flames are getting pretty close to my hand! I am going to need to do something with it soon!
More seriously I would hate to be trying to figure out the best approach here. On the one hand more people using/commenting the better but on the other it costs money and so need to serve ads to those not paying for membership. However how do you keep topping up the members if others cant use the site easily.
Makes me think, at the risk of getting into politics, about the idea that since ad revenue is better in the USA (dunno why but apparently its true) our main newspapers are increasingly targeting the US market which results in the stories, even in print in the UK, being increasingly skewed to appeal to the US audience.
It was your free members who made the content here a worthwhile read. And your ridiculous "Ads or pay up" attitude has basically killed off what you had left of that.
I'm sure Mark will be receptive to any better ideas you might have which don't cost the business a salary or two.
I'm sure Mark will be receptive to any better ideas you might have which don't cost the business a salary or two.
If you do have an idea which is cost effective definitely dont offer it for free and make sure the contract is watertight about Mark only being able to say how good it is vs the actual details.
It would be **** you money worthy.
I subscribe to the magazine.
I think my yearly subscription money makes me happier not seeing adverts on here than the magazine now.
Which is a bit sad as the magazine was through thing to start with, but now I'm on the forum for much more time each month than I spend reading the magazine
So if you don't like the adverts, I'd suggest subscribing.
So eatmorepizza your solution is for the site to be entirely funded by the subscribers like me, whilst you browse for free?
If it was worth subscribing, I would. But what am I actually subscribing for? To not get low quality adds unwillingly spammed all over screen? For access to a forum that's mostly mid 50s blokes chatting idle shite or moaning? Or maybe to get mtb content that's clearly sponsored/biased for a paid review like the cotic ebike, or maybe other content thats usually already covered by mbr, mbuk, vitalmtb or pinkbike?
There isn't one single unique selling point worth subscribing for in my opinion, so I guess yeah, my solution is for the site to be entirely funded by the subscribers like you whilst I browse a once a amazing forum and bike site whilst slowly watching it die
5/10 😉
If it was worth subscribing, I would. But what am I actually subscribing for? To not get low quality adds unwillingly spammed all over screen? For access to a forum that's mostly mid 50s blokes chatting idle shite or moaning? Or maybe to get mtb content that's clearly sponsored/biased for a paid review like the cotic ebike, or maybe other content thats usually already covered by mbr, mbuk, vitalmtb or pinkbike?
There isn't one single unique selling point worth subscribing for in my opinion, so I guess yeah, my solution is for the site to be entirely funded by the subscribers like you whilst I browse a once a amazing forum and bike site whilst slowly watching it die
Which begs the question, if your view of the forum is so totally negative, why are you even still here posting? This is honestly not a dig. I am genuinely trying to understand why someone (anyone) with such a low opinion of an internet forum would waste any time at all on it and not just leave?
why someone (anyone) with such a low opinion of an internet forum would waste any time at all on it and not just leave?
Boredom?
