Since the Spring/Summer of 2015, conversation on the web about advertising on websites has spiked. It’s mostly about what’s ethical, legal, and respects user’s privacy; all valid concerns. But there’s another side to the internet that you may not have considered: creating content is not free.
So, Inside The Star runs ads on its pages. Just like you, we have bills to pay. They include paying writers, expenses for servers and the like, and advertising costs to expand our reader base. I have been against serving ads on this site for many years, but I finally caved. It was a difficult decision for me, personally, but the website has grown 10 fold. We’ve added more regular readers and more writers who are both reliable and valuable content producers.
One of the biggest factors in my decision was the question of how to do ads responsibly.
Websites that have popups on every page suck. The same goes for any site that automatically plays video and audio, especially those that blare the volume. Interstitial ads suck and pop-under ads suck too. It’s easy to understand why people block ads, because the web is full of sites who abuse that privilege at every opportunity. I definitely get it.
But there is a right way to do ads
Many of our readers do not use ad-blockers, and I am deeply grateful to those users for supporting what we do.
But there are others who do use ad-blockers, users who essentially take our content while leaving nothing in return. Given the number of sites that have taught them to block ads and abuse of ads, I don’t blame them. I am one of them! But not all sites are like that, and ad-blockers generally don’t allow you to see if a site respects you with unobtrusive ads. So for those of you who use ad-blockers, I encourage you to disable them on Inside The Star, and here’s why.
Every page you load is a transaction of the content we write for your view. Views are supposed to include ads because that’s how we manage the cost of producing that content. Of course, the content is key and that’s why we don’t block or obfuscate content with ads. We only run ads served through Google’s AdSense network (the best is the best for a reason, right?) and we do our very best to block any advertisers that abuse users with auto-playing audio or video. We don’t use popups or pop-under ads and we don’t use interstitial ads. We run a handful of ads per page in areas that do not normal obstruct the flow of content (1 in the header, 2 in the sidebar, 1 below the content, and 1 in the footer, less on mobile devices).
Our goal is to provide you with a pleasant and informative experience, and while many sites and advertisers have long since abandoned respectful practices, we have not.
For those reasons we ask that you consider white-listing Inside The Star’s ads to support the content we create for you.
Alternatively, if you wish to continue blocking our ads, you should consider donating regularly (Donate via PayPal). A very reasonable argument can be made for the use of an ad-blocker being akin to pirating content, even though that is, in all likelihood, not your intention. But the result is agnostic of your intention in this case. I’ve written this notice because the result may not be clear.
The simple truth is that we can only continue to write new content for as long as we can keep the lights on, and we rely on you – our customers – to do that.
So please give it some thought, disable the ad-blocker and see for yourself how we do ads on the site, and make an educated decision that reflects the value you get from our content. If you like it, then a few unobtrusive ads is hardly an unreasonable request.
Keep the web going: Support respectful ad practices
Thank you for even reading this notice, it’s certainly not what Inside The Star is all about.
Sincerely,
Bryson Treece
Owner/Founder, InsideTheStar.com & Slant Sports Digital