Salon Asks Ad-Blocking Visitors to Mine Cryptocurrency

Megalith

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Salon appears to be the first major outlet to officially adopt cryptocurrency mining for revenue: visitors who browse the site have the option of either turning their ad-blocker off, or allowing Salon to use their unused computing power.

Salon visitors running adblock are seeing a new pop-up that blocks access to the site’s content until one of two things are done: the adblock is disabled or the user allows the site to “use your unused computing power.” In explaining why it has added this alternative, Salon explains the issue of ad-blocking software and the loss of revenue it has created.
 
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Wow, what a garbage site. Go look at it and then, I dunno, damn, it's pretty stupid and looks like a 5 year old put it together.

And if an ad blocker is ever an "issue", then you're the actual problem and need to change the ad delivery, because obviously it's not liked.
 
Wow, what a garbage site. Go look at it and then, I dunno, damn, it's pretty stupid and looks like a 5 year old put it together.

And if an ad blocker is ever an "issue", then you're the actual problem and need to change the ad delivery, because obviously it's not liked.


I still don't get how content creators don't grasp what annoys users. I've been using an app on my phone for TV listings for years, it's been great, it has a banner ad. They added a full screen ad and I didn't mind, only popped up here or there. Now they've added video to that pop up with max sound. I noped the heck out and uninstalled it. Why keep pushing the boundary?
 
I still don't get how content creators don't grasp what annoys users. I've been using an app on my phone for TV listings for years, it's been great, it has a banner ad. They added a full screen ad and I didn't mind, only popped up here or there. Now they've added video to that pop up with max sound. I noped the heck out and uninstalled it. Why keep pushing the boundary?
I'd like to coin a term. Let's call it "software entropy". It's the fact the the devs want to monetize the app and don't care how much it angers the users. What happens is the software ends up crap and goes the way of entropy.
 
Finally, it's the future, someone better start it out.

People should have options, ads, no ads and mine, no ads and paid. Use what you like, I would be less inclined to use ad blockers that way, except if they go all wild on my PC and mine with 50%+ of resources, keep it reasonable, stop once I move on and that is a fair non-obtrusive deal.
 
"use your unused computing power..."

Yeah, sure. Downplay and condense distributed computing into an "OK" button on a website. A perfectly laissez-faire activity suitable for anyone's computer... until the odd person's laptop or phone overheats and pops a lipo.

I folded for team 33 for a decade, ran distributed crypto, and occassionally neural nets, but every process was controlled by a thermal monitor cutoff even on my windtunnel-for-a-PC. I really don't like the idea of running this on consumer hardware owned by the uninitiated. In some way, I hope something awful happens and goes very public.
 
Not sure why everyone is so critical of being given this choice? lots of people have said on this forum that they would be happy to support [H] with mining script as a way to offset using their addblocker. Its not like they are doing it secretly. You can choose to mine / enable adds or F-off somewhere else. I fail to see how they are doing anything wrong here.
Now i have no idea about what content this site offers but does that really matter?
 
no lots of people haven't said they would want a miner here. any site that puts one in place can fuck right off.
 
no lots of people haven't said they would want a miner here. any site that puts one in place can fuck right off.

Ok maybe not "lots" but a number of people have. besides since its not turned on by default, why does this anger you so much?
 
no lots of people haven't said they would want a miner here. any site that puts one in place can fuck right off.

not going to go through and find the thread but right around the beginning of this webmining a thread came up and MOST of the posts in that thread said they would be happy to have this feature IF it was optional. I personally would support it and run it as all my computers have a stupid amount of unused power as a result of my epeen addiction (all my 8+ thread systems already mine crypto for myself in the backround)
 
the whole cyptofad pisses me off as its totally fucked over the pc gaming industry, what little cards were available all went to crypto and now its driving up psu prices too.
yeah there may be a few of the new/young guys around here that would be ok with it but I don't want some god-knows-what program being injected into my system regardless of what it claims to do.
 
the whole cyptofad pisses me off as its totally fucked over the pc gaming industry, what little cards were available all went to crypto and now its driving up psu prices too.
yeah there may be a few of the new/young guys around here that would be ok with it but I don't want some god-knows-what program being injected into my system regardless of what it claims to do.

the website owner knows exactly whats happening and judging by the curent 0 tollerance policy on mallicius adds as well as this fourm only having 1 small add i would be certain if it was to be done here they would do a pretty dang good job of keeping everything 100% honest. as for the cryptofad im sorry if you guys cant find parts i have had no issues ordering everything below msrp if you know where too look.
 
I had other responses typed but thought better and stuck to that, it sums up my feelings pretty well.
 
I've no idea what Salon is, but to be honest, I'd have no objection to the sites that I do visit on a daily basis having a crypto-mining option as an alternative to ads.

I mean, I absolutely hate ads and use an ad-blocker so they get nothing from me currently, but I understand that they have web hosting costs, so I'd happily let a miner do its thing in the background as long as it had a sensible cap on resource usage. To me it seems like a frustration-free way of supporting my favourite sites...
 
what a rational and well thought out response.
If you still haven't picked up on all that is against it, then you weren't paying attention to all the discussion surrounding it.
 
the whole cyptofad pisses me off as its totally fucked over the pc gaming industry, what little cards were available all went to crypto and now its driving up psu prices too.
yeah there may be a few of the new/young guys around here that would be ok with it but I don't want some god-knows-what program being injected into my system regardless of what it claims to do.
Be prepared for all the whistle dicks to sprout up and fling their purses angrily at you to start mining for yourself to offset the cost that they caused.
 
the whole cyptofad pisses me off as its totally fucked over the pc gaming industry, what little cards were available all went to crypto and now its driving up psu prices too.

You're actually referring the PC Hardware industry. The PC gaming industry is still in one of its best periods in the last 20 years according to every statistic available.
 
yes it is starting to fuck the entire hardware industry.

I think that it's really going to have a substantial impact on motherboard manufacturers specifically due to demand for the mainstream boards no longer aligning with the videocards available in the market they would normally find a home for. While people that want to game out on pc are still going to be able to find suitable solutions for their needs, more buyers may fall back on OEM systems that deliver all the components in one easy to find and price compare alternative. I know that retailers are trying to pair together new motherboards at reasonable prices in gpu packages just to keep moving inventory that undoubtedly would just get stale and depreciate due to intel's constant chipset obsolescence. While there doesn't seem to be any supply issues for motherboard mfrs, this could impact pricing moving ahead if retail is less willing to purchase historical numbers in bulk, showing reduced demand, and increased price due to a waning demand.
 
Between this news and the news about the flight sim company stealing your google passwords, I am about "THIS" close to swearing off computers forever and just going and living in a shack in the mountains.
 
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