Penny-Arcade Kickstarter

[PhantoM]

Browsing the internet on a client site, which is usually running something horrible like IE7, makes me realise just how god-awful the internet is in terms of adverts, pop-ups, tracking cookies & 3rd party Javascript garbage when you're not running Adblock/Noscript/Ghostery.

Word, I love NoScript, too. Not familiar with Ghostery, though. What's that about? Could google it but I feel you seem like you'd be able to give me a better answer.

[Spad]

Word, I love NoScript, too. Not familiar with Ghostery, though. What's that about? Could google it but I feel you seem like you'd be able to give me a better answer.

Ghostery is like NoScript for tracking cookies; it allows you to see and block the numerous 3rd parties that track you on just about every site you visit. For example, GamingLives uses Google Analytics, which uses a tracking cookie to identify you, most sites have Twitter & Facebook integration that tracks you, every Advertising provider tracks you, some CDNs track you. I've seen sites with 10+ different 3rd parties all with their own tracking cookies.

io9.com (and other sites in that network), for example:

[etherfiend]

I hate this idea. Mind you I said on some other KickStarter thread ages ago on here that after Tim Shafer's success, every well-known dev/publisher, etc would start trying it out so why not media too.

Despite the morality behind it, this is actually quite clever/shrewd because:
a) people always moan about ads (despite many anti-ad plugins, etc)
b) a prosimed potential amount of new content is vague enough to prick up the ears of interested parties but still not guarantee actually producing anything
c) A yearly kickstarter is effectively no different than paying for an 'ad free' subscription - except everyone, not just the people that coughed up, benefits. Additionally a 'fanboi' may view $100 as a suitable amount to pay for no ads, whereas another may only pledge $5 a year. In effect they are leaving the subscription value up to the users so rather than saying "aha, we have a paywall, bitches! $20 a year to access PA" they've effectively chosen a total figure (which undoubtedly includes some profit and covers other expenses as well) and are using that to get the nerds to cough up whatever they feel is a 'right' contribution. PA then get a feel for what a subscription to the site might be worth, how many would be willing to do it (as they've already said this is a yearly thing) and if their 'brand' is popular enough to go ad-free online. It's a win-win, if they don't get the money they keep the ads and if they get the cash then they make money and potentially have a subscription/paywall model to mull over for the future.

Clever, if a little evil.