But I had to comment on how obnoxious this website is with my NextDNS mistakingly disabled. What have we done to the Internet! 3 popups to sign up for paid, newsletter and web alerts. scroll down to see auto playing videos, ridiculous full-banner ads.
wow
Which reminds me that I need to pull a RPi off the shelf and provision another Pi-Hole for the camper now that there’s a Starlink attached. I’m not paying by the byte to have ads delivered.
It just has to be better than selling your nonprofit’s contact list to other nonprofits.
Turns out you really can't make a lot of money that way. Especially now. If you don't offer re-targeting and bespoke ads, no one wants to pay you money for ads.
But even then the perpetual problem in business is that what people are willing to tell you they want isn’t what they want or need, and they will shift the goalposts on you after they sign up. Cognitive dissonance will become deafening.
Years ago we used to talk regularly about firing customers. My read was that was always about ridding yourselves of the ones who pushed you into becoming someone you couldn’t stand to look at in the mirror. Eventually some of your customers will want the same cyberstalking features they see advertised by another vendor and they will forget why they can’t have it. They’ll sign up with someone who lies to them better than you do.
I wanted to add that every time I use the internet without a blocker, it's so depressing to realize this is how a lot of people, mostly older, experience the Internet. Very sad as someone in the industry.
It doesn't always work though, I assume the major publishers are employing some counter-measures. Also generally javascript heavy websites.
My dad still uses yahoo for all of his news. I've realized it's not uncommon to hear people use Yahoo as the front page of the internet still in 2025. I get it. Also, it's depressing. (left for the reader to see why. just go to yahoo with blockers off).