Interesting funding discussion regarding JayIsGames.com

[mouser]

We've frequently posted links to casual flash game writeups on JayIsGames.com, and they have run some good flash game contests in the past.

They have started a discussion about funding issues that is quite interesting:

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2014/01/jayisgames_ads_the_future_and_you.php#comment-panels

Last year, JayisGames.com celebrated its tenth anniversary. For a site that began as one person's personal blog to have turned into what it is today and survive that long, well... that's kind of amazing. But we're in trouble, because as adblockers become more and more common, it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet... and not take a loss. Please take the time to read this post about how we make our money, where it goes, why we have a problem, and why we want your help deciding what to do about it.

[TaoPhoenix]

This looks like a fairly typical discussion, which is "interesting" because it's a "small site industry wide topic", but otherwise generic in that I don't see anything "fascinating" about that exact site. I've never heard of them, and you can take that discussion and do a search and replace for their name and the next one, and the discussion remains the same. We had one here a while back, with a different result, that Mouser wasn't happy with the results of his ads and turned them off again.

(Hoping I get the tone of this next bit right!)

It seems to me that they're missing a hysterically funny obvious educational moment!

The problem "isn't that hard" - meaning that it's a pretty easy set of equations to describe.

A. Page Views
B1. Actual Ads Loaded - Effects of AdBlock
B2. Plea to turn off AdBlock
C. Donate Button
D. Sell Direct Ad Space
E. Write smaller reviews that are cheaper
F1. Other1
F2. Other2

But everyone's treating this in all Hushed Tones!

So ... make a Flash Game! It would be a piece of cake to write.

Possible joke - only show it to people who use AdBlock!

[40hz]

Some of the comments and attitudes shown over at JayIsGames are beyond belief.

God, are there ever some utterly 'precious' and self-righteous freeloaders out there...

[tomos]

After a recent comment from wraith, I've started paying more attention to sites and adblock/ing. Have to admit I hate most 'flashing' ads (usually Flash I think) and would be slow to 'allow' them. Others in the comments were avoiding these for bandwidth reasons.

Some of the comments and attitudes shown over at JayIsGames are beyond belief.

God, are there ever some utterly 'precious' and self-righteous freeloaders out there...

the first ten comments were supportive... gotta admit I gave up after that.

[mouser]

I think there are a lot of interesting things in the post (not sure about comments).

However I have to say that I'm extremely surprised at the idea that adblockers could have such a dramatic impact on income.  This goes against everything I understand about advertising volumes and the percentage of people aggressively blocking ads with adblockers.  Could it really be the case that such a high percentage of visitors are using ad blockers?

They say:

Over 60% of you are using some sort of adblock program

Can that really be true? It doesn't mesh with my gut impression of how many people are using adblockers -- in fact if i had to guess i would be guessing somewhere in the 1% range..

Is it possible that they are THINKING that 60% of visitors are using adblockers, but what they are really seeing is that 59% of their traffic is coming from bots or other automated services that don't load ads?  Or am I grossly wrong about the percentage of users running ad blockers.

[Deozaan]

What makes you think so few JayIsGames visitors are using adblockers?

Admittedly, most people I know don't use them, but they're not the kind of people who would be visiting sites like JayIsGames anyway.

[mouser]

I'm just shocked at the idea that so many of the visitors to any site are using adblockers.

[40hz]

I'm just shocked at the idea that so many of the visitors to any site are using adblockers.

Seriously?

Whenever I install Firefox on a client machine, AdBlock Plus and NoScript are the only extensions I include by default. And my clients are glad to have them.

[wraith808]

I'm just shocked at the idea that so many of the visitors to any site are using adblockers.

Seriously?

Whenever I install Firefox on a client machine, AdBlock Plus and NoScript are the only extensions I include by default. And my clients are glad to have them.

Exactly.  And I only turn it off if I consciously think of it.  Ads have gotten a bad name, and as such, are on the losing side on most installations.

[tomos]

Well,
I enabled adblock on many sites. Unfortunately I have now gotten a popup virus that wanted me to download and install I-know-not-what.
(NewBrowserVersion.org pop-up -- more info here http://malwaretips.com/blogs/newbrowserversion-org-removal/#browser)
I'm not sure even via which site I got it (I had opened a session in Firefox and went through a bunch of tabs to load them) but I reckon I'm probably correct in thinking it came via an ad


Prompted me to finally install malwarebytes at least