Works for me.

As GrahamS said;

Main reason I’m a P is to support the forum because I recognise the value in it – despite the occasional bickering it is by far the best online community I’ve been part of.

the content really is genuinely provided free

If the forum closed tonight, where would you and the other “content providers” go?

If the forum closed tonight, where would you and the other “content providers” go?

For a bike ride?

If the forum closed tonight

If it went P-only, then a commercial product just instantly lost its entire community of potential customers, and would need to survive solely on those with auto-renewal direct debits.

Ski Club of GB did exactly that, but one thing they did have in their favour was a large number of customers with auto-renewal direct debits that just carried on auto-renewing year after year “because they’ve always been a member”.

The other forum of which I am a member (P there too) came in to existence pretty much because of that episode. 10 years of a deserted forum, and 10+ years of a new “free” forum that’s nothing to do with the commercial operation that had its own free forum.

The forum is an investment in the main product, even if the free bit does need to help subsidise the main product.

As for time to read the mag, I read mine while doing err… “daily business”. Only one story per sitting. Don’t want numb legs. 😉

Doing my best to take out the £15 digital subscription but the link isn’t opening. Seems to be at the page rather thann my end as some links work and others don’t.

Given that currently £10 of that £15 goes to two great charities (see news on home page) I’d suggest any other freeloaders do likewise.

Can’t argue about £5 a year.

irc,

Currently it’s only the print and digital that contributes to the charities. But we’ve just discussed this further in the office and decided that we are going to include £5 from every digital sub.
We are also going to donate £2 from every non copy of issue 100 sold in our shop too. We are going to backdate the donation on digital subs and issue 100 sales to yesterday, so if anyone has bought a digital sub then you will have contributed.

As for the glitch in subscribing I’ve alerted our techs and they are investigating it now.

If the forum closed have a look at other forums, which I used to do anyway (but got out of the habit recently). STW seems clearly the best at the moment, but these things change. Usenet used to be good but that was ages ago. The other users would go somewhere too, like the ski story up there ^ (I’m sure there are other usenet refugees here). It’s not like there would never be a good forum again. I agree that £5 is not bad value but if the otehr £10 is going to charity then I’d rather gift-aid it.

andytherocketeer, snowHeads? just clicked back there after years of not going there, it’s not changed much has it? That was/is a great forum.

If the forum closed have a look at other forums

Obviously other forums are available, but I find this place significantly and consistently better than most, whether it’s for MTB, biking in general, dare I say it “politics” or even help and advice with totally OT things.

Without wanting to risk overstating things, there’s a huge wealth of advice and knowledge concentrated here which would be lost, or at the least diluted, if it were scattered around multiple other forums.

BTW I only got a “P” today after a combination of reading the Jenn post and writing my first post on this thread… I’ve been an on-and-off buyer of the mag for years and a regular user of browser-tools-that-shall-not-be-named.

The good news is that Apple are trying to take over the world so much and manipulate industries and business streams that at some point the EU will get involved. There is no way that Apple can blocks ads on one hand and then allow ads through there own News app (whilst taking 30%) without the regulatory bodies coming down on them. Apples market share is far to big to allow an anti competitive behaviour like this to be allowed. Just remember the battles that Microsoft had with the EU just because they bundled Internet Explorer with every PC.

Apple has got itself into a position where it has far to much power over certain industries and its policies will need to change as it is now just so big.

The publishing industry has brought this on themselves somewhat by so many annoying ads and popups that in many cases just don’t work on mobile devices. We the public do also have to realise that you can’t have things like SIngletrack World unless it is paid for and ads pay the wages. Personally I would prefer to have ads and still have Singletrack World. It’s the price you pay.

The positive side to ad blocking is all the click bait that is rife on social media will be no more. I wonder what will be done to get round it all, no doubt someone will find a way.

As for the glitch in subscribing I’ve alerted our techs and they are investigating it now.

Thanks Mark. Working now. Now subscribed.

There is no way that Apple can blocks ads on one hand and then allow ads through there own News app (whilst taking 30%) without the regulatory bodies coming down on them.

But Apple aren’t blocking ads, unless I’ve very much misunderstood the situation. All Apple have done in iOS9 is allow ad-blockers that weren’t previously allowed. They haven’t actually delivered any ad-blocking themselves; they’ve simply opened up that walled garden everyone complains about so the ad-blockers can get a piece of the iOS action. If you upgrade to iOS9 you’re not blocking any ads. YOU have to buy an app to do that and in that scenario YOU’RE the one blocking the ads.

The net result may be the same, but I don’t know how Apple can get in trouble for it. I do have to salute their plan though.

Worth remembering that a few years ago when when the Cookie Directive came in that Adland lobbied Europe hard so that browsers could be used as a consent mechanism as to whether people want third-party tracking cookies or not. They did this on the basis that few would actually opt-out of behavioural advertising. Blocking software installed at browser level is just an expression of a consent mechanism Adland asked for.

Very interesting read: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web not sure where this leaves site like STW but as Mark says it’s going to be interesting over thenext few weeks and months.

@woody what @still says, Apple allows you to buy a third party app which blocks ads. I am going to download Peace and give it a go.

UPDATE: Peace bought £2.29 (it’s the number 1 paid app in uk App Store now). One purchase allows use on multiple devices (works on my iPad and iPhone). Simple activation is Settings/General/Safari. News websites like Guardain / BBC now load almost instantly with none of the daft rendering issues with screen jumping all over the place. 🙂

Very interesting read:

You’re right, it is, and I’d recommend anyone interested in this discussion go read it. Yes, now, off you go, we’ll wait.

Just read that, interesting. IMO the issue is that current iteration of online ads are so intrusive and degrade the “experience” that I’ve been happy to pay £2.29 to be able to ignore them. The industry could have gone down a path to ensure they where not so but they have not. The industry is able to adapt rapidly and it will.

UPDATE: Peace bought £2.29 (it’s the number 1 paid app in uk App Store now). One purchase allows use on multiple devices (works on my iPad and iPhone). Simple activation is Settings/General/Safari. News websites like Guardain / BBC now load almost instantly with none of the daft rendering issues with screen jumping all over the place.

What adverts does the BBC site have !?

Lots, if viewing from a non-UK IP address. (I think 😉 )

Out of interest, I got the Peace app

I browsed on my phone to the local news rag website. As usual there were adverts a plenty, mainly getting in the way of what little actual news content there was.

Then I turned on Ad blocking and reloaded. result = no ads and no news!! Appears that the ad blocker is blocking all the news content as well!

@STATO what @andy says, I’m in France at the moment. BBC has loads of ads when abroad, not as annoying as the Guardain with the rendering though.

browser-tools-that-shall-not-be-named.

Mine has made browsing so much more pleasurable. It was becoming a real pain on certain sites.

Hope STW lower the subs cost. I know it’s not loads but I reckon it needs to be lower to attract and keep users.

Lower?

AND while ad revenue goes through the floor? Our subs are amazing value for what you get. Right now all our share is going to charity for the next month.

Anyhow, back to the topic. That article above does nail the current situation. 2016 will be the year of distributed content. Websites as a means of content distribution are so last year. We’ve been preparing for this for the last 6 months and we sill don’t yet know how it’s going to affect us financially in the end. As users you are going to get a lot less ads in your face. The big three are providing revenue streams for publishers in the new app delivered content world but right now we just have no idea how much it’s going to be worth. Will that one single ad you see on a page be worth what the 4 or 5 that exist on this page currently pay? No one knows. Most of the ad market is programatic, which means rates paid for ads go up and down almost on an hourly basis. Two weeks ago I watched the Chinese stock market crash knock the crap out of our ad revenue for 3 days. There was a big spike in rates on tuesday as campaigns rushed to deliver all their inventory before iOS 9 was released.

The only revenue we can count on and budget for is subs revenue. If we make a good mag we sell more. If we make a bad mag we sell less. It’s in our control in other words. The ad revenue market is not in our control and yet it forms a chunk of our revenue equivalent to all our subscription revenues and retail mag sales combined.

And publishing runs on a typical profit margin of under 5%

So I’m nervous.

And I won’t be reducing subs prices anytime soon.

And I won’t be reducing subs prices anytime soon.

I get this, I really do. I sympathise.
But I still reckon that subs across many websites will have to be very low in order to compete.

There’s a good mix of free and paid for news sites, that both seem to be surviving for now. I use the free ones but that’s mostly because I’d rather read the Guardian and BBC than the Times or Telegraph anyway.

The Telegraph is free to read the whole paper every day, just delete it’s cookie every 15 articles, or just only allow session cookies and open a new tab every 15 articles…..

The Telegrapgh is so easy to get free it’s embarrassing, you do wonder why they bother !

Internet revenue is fascinating and bizarre, the lad with the games YouTube channel where he commentates on games he’s playing makes $4.8m pa. The Brit girl who plays minecraft makes millions also. Can’t imagine Russel Brand isn’t making very good money too.

I hope the Apple News channel and similar works for STW as I’d hate to see it wither and disappear, easily the best MTB magazine since I saw my first copy at the Glencorrig cafe after a ride,

Ya, so I bought a .99p adblocker app from da store innit. Yo’a blocked da adz., I finkz….

Shall take a glance at some rather “special” sites to see if it’s working, like Ya.

Peace has been pulled!

http://www.marco.org/2015/09/18/just-doesnt-feel-good

The Telegraph is free to read the whole paper every day, just delete it’s cookie every 15 articles, or just only allow session cookies and open a new tab every 15 articles.

Or in windows Firefox open a private window. Actually I still buy a real paper almost every day. If online versions were pay only I’d stick to the paper version and BBC news which I pay for by licence fee. I did subscribe to Times online and the paper but found I didn’t
want to read the same paper every day.

Crazyguyonabike has an interesting funding model. Voluntary donations. I use it a lot and have donated a fair bit over the years. But I think that would only work for a one man operation with user generated content.

Peace has been pulled!

Blimey! The app was almost instantly number 1 in the Top Grossing chart.
That guy could have made his fortune but chose to pull it instead in the interests of fairness. 😯

Actually I still buy a real paper almost every day.

I’d love to get one delivered, but the market has collapsed in Cambridge and my local newsagents gone bust and become yet another take away joint, so I just make do and read online during the week (buy the Saturday Telegraph and Sunday Times at the WE).

Blimey! The app was almost instantly number 1 in the Top Grossing chart.
That guy could have made his fortune but chose to pull it instead in the interests of fairness.

Completely pointless move, it won’t make the slightest difference as the other Ad blockers will take his market share.

But I still reckon that subs across many websites will have to be very low in order to compete.

You’re probably right, but there also needs to be a paradigm shift in people’s expectations. People don’t want to pay, don’t want adverts, and yet expect quality content to just keep appearing (and indeed, stay alive at all). I’m all for a ‘free web’ but ultimately STW and every other provider on the web isn’t a charity, something’s got to give.

TBH, it baffles me that people will cheerfully pay £500 for the latest and greatest phone just to throw in a drawer in two years and repeat the process, yet baulk at paying 69p for an app or the price of a pint for a website they use daily. Not that I’m a poster-boy for this either of course, I’m a monumental hypocrite; but when you take a step back it’s definitely broken logic. Maybe we’re entering an era where “contract renewal” doesn’t equate to ‘new “free” phone’ in people’s heads but rather freeing up that expenditure to feed and fuel the bugger?

TBH, it baffles me that people will cheerfully pay £500 for the latest and greatest phone just to throw in a drawer in two years and repeat the process, yet baulk at paying 69p for an app or the price of a pint for a website they use daily.

Capex vs Opex, it’s the same in business, people will do anything to reduce Opex, often spending more on capex.

There is an interesting potential upside to all this in that ad blocking and content delivered via apps is not conducive to click bait journalism. Clickbait websites make their money from maximising ad exposure around a single bounced visit. That’s not a business model I’d be investing in right now.

It could be that if publishers earn reasonable money from that single ad exposure in each app story that the race for website page impressions to maximise ad impressions will become less of a motivating factor in the publishing world. That could make way for better, long form journalism to shine through.

In the Apple news app you select your favourite ‘channels’ and these channels are displayed on your favourites screen in order of preference. Your favourites will be in the top 6 as that is what fits neatly on your screen. Channels that you don;t like will be a scroll away or you just won’t bother favouriting them at all. The quality channels will ‘float’ to the top. If your user experience of that channel is poor you won’t read it again.

Publishers are going to come under pressure to keep readers engaged with quality content that is updated frequently. That’s the only way they will get that single ad to be displayed and it’s the only way we are going to get you to keep coming back.

So I think there’s hope for us all here 🙂

EDIT: I hoisted by my own petard up there 🙂

You naughty boys changing the word ” adblocker” for “freeloader”

Some would call you cynical, I’m a subscriber and wouldn’t think of calling you that.

And again…

Why exactly?

It happens automatically bikebouy – via the swear filter.

I suspect it is related to the Forum Rule:
“In addition you agree not to promote the use of a d blocking on our site in either story comments or forum posts.”

It could be that if publishers earn reasonable money from that single ad exposure in each app story that the race for website page impressions to maximise ad impressions will become less of a motivating factor in the publishing world. That could make way for better, long form journalism to shine through.

This makes me think of the podcast ad model used at present – vastly higher ad rates (per-audience member) but generally delivered by the host, ads selected and vetted by them, perhaps with some of their input to tailor to their audience.

I can totally see (or at least hope for!) high quality written journalism, with thoughtful more carefully selected ads yet getting better rates for them.

To give an example from this site – the mountain journal articles:

Mountain Journal No.1 – Helvellyn

Interesting well produced long form writing with embedded Ads relevant to the reader – and I’d hope you got better Ad rates for it.

That guy could have made his fortune but chose to pull it instead in the interests of fairness.

Glad I bought my copy earlier, it’s fantastic and still working just fine. Transforms experience on a lot for websites I visit.

I smell a rat, he’s pulled the app as he’s been paid off / the app bought. Think about it Google would pay $50, $100m, $200m ?