Interesting article for those who block ads

Pay and support Chess.com; the site is a very good thing for chess, and you get a better account anyways. If you disagree, then leave; because you either are so badly informed you know nothing about the chess community, or you don't care about chess beyond your own unimportant games. And don't tell me everyone in this thread is so poor that they can't afford, $25, $49, or $99 per year! And as for TWF, he seems to have never gotten around to acquiring a paid membership.

Just want to jump in on this.

On its own, YouTube.com is not yet making money. It survives because Google itself is making huge gobs of money.

And... as someone who operates a user-generated content site with millions of pages and thousands of daily member users, I can confirm that dollar-a-month and/or donation systems never provide more than a fraction of what's needed to keep a site up and operational.

They offer $500 life memberships by special request. I believe they already have donations. And also, I have had Platinum before and it is nice, but of course Diamond is better. And Chess.com videos are very reliable and instructive; whereas the chess videos commonly on Youtube (which I have seen many) are unreliable and can be simply false. And you don't need to spend $12 a month, spend $99 up front and forget about it for a year.

Options:

1) Disable Flash. Every ad network will serve a non-Flash alternative static ad -- thereby giving Chess.com revenue for the bandwidth/resources you're using. On most browsers, disabling Flash is an easy checkbox in your settings.

2) Upgrade to the latest versions of Chrome or Safari, and initiate "PowerSave" which allows the user to specify which Flash objects on a page are allowed to run. Again, most ad networks detect this, and deliver a non-Flash alternative.

3) Restart your browser before, or only use Chrome for Live Chess. Restarting the browser clears lots of issues. Current versions of Chrome are much more efficient for live content than the other browser alternatives.

Well, if the sites I use start ceasing to exist and the only way to keep them alive would be paying for them, I'd probably do that.

I, however, am not willing to endure ads.

If the website wants to make money, that is up to them to figure out.  Why should we do the work for you and come up with some money making scheme?  You want it, figure it out.  No one owes you anything here.

please...

Wow. That's the most absurdly self-entitled prattle I've seen in a long time.

The question -- posed to you as a user of the content, services, and bandwidth of this website -- was a valid and important question.

Do you want a gate-kept web managed only by corporations that can aford to deliver content with out ads -- and no small independent websites.

Or do you want a vibrant web with millions of independent and interesting sites?

There are only two choices right now.

Subscription based.

Nothing self-entitled about it.  I'm simply using a service that was offered for free.  I never agreed to view ads to use this service.  If you want to change the terms suddenly, don't be surprised when people don't like it.

As for what I actually was talking about, users should not feel required to come up with a successfull business model for chess.com as some sort of concession for their poor one.  If they want to make money, they should be the one to come up with a business model that makes money.  No one should feel beholden to do that for them.  That's not self-entitled, that's common sense.

There is no "self-entitlement" here.  If someone on that street offers me a hamburger for free and I eat it, I don't see the problem with that (other than health concerns).  If that person then comes at me and asks me to watch an infomercial after the fact, I don't feel like I should have to do that.  If they then ask me how they should make a living since I'm not cooperating with their absurd business model and I tell them that's up to them, how is that self-entitled?

Seriously.  This is just nonsense.

Oh, I almost forgot about the rest of your post, which is a terrific example of a false dichotomy.  These are not the only two choices.  Not even close.  In fact, this part of  your post is even more absurd than the first part.

(as a simple example, see FICS which has offered a complete chess server, superior to this one, in fact, since 1995, completely free with no ads at all.  And that isn't even the only totally free and ad free excellent chess server.  Not mention countless other non chess websites, etc. out there)

It's alarming that people are distorting their view of this situation to this degree in SUPPORT of advertising like this.  Alarming, disturbing, bizarre, I have a bunch of adjectives that fit it perfectly, in fact.

without hard numbers i would venture a guess that if the site was wholly subscription based, you would have a whole lot less players and/or much higher fees.  i think that in a way the masses that come on this site and play for free actually help bring in revenue indirectly because the advertisers look to put their ads on the sites with the largest audiences and pay rates related to that.  by bringing in the masses for free, the site then also has a higher chance of converting more to the subscriptions offered.  so i think that the ad model works best when it is in conjunction with the subscribers.  but if you really think about it, this whole "appropriate business models for the internet" is really still in its infancy with lots of trial and error.  look how long amazon took to turn a profit.

but i think what's at the heart of most of the complaining is the TYPE of ads that started appearing:  performance hampering and also invasive and disruptive to the thought process that chess requires--especially in the blitz live games.  i did not read the whole mass of posts but i did not see eric or others from the site weigh in on that specific issue.

That is an inherently self-entitled attitude. Because you can't see/accept it, doesn't make it not-so.

Advertising on free websites has been the generally accepted value proposition since hotwired.com. To indignantly claim you -- as a user of the Internet -- never "agreed" to receive ads is faux ignornace.

Totally disagree with every word of this post.

Freechess.org is a niche "hobbyist" website that doesn't have anywhere near the overhead and bandwidth costs of a site like Chess.com.

Totally irrelevant.  Again, chess.com has chosen this path with full knowledge that lots of people actively block advertisements.  It is completely disingenuous to pretend like it's some sort of trick the users are playing on them now and they should cut it out.

And all I'm saying is that if you use and enjoy a service, it's the height of impertinence to actively seek out ways to prevent paying for it, and to advocate others should avoiding paying for it right on their doorstep. 

I will say again, too, that if chess.com wants to disallow free usage if the user doesn't agree to view ads, that's fine.  I will happily stop coming here and continue using the other superior servers I already use.  Won't bat an eye.  But as long as they offer this 100% free service, I will use it.  And I don't really care if a bunch of bizarrely righteously indignant users don't like it.

I'm not seek out ways to prevent paying for it.  I was never asked to pay for it.

Please don't, after all this, feign the absurd ignorance that you don't believe advertising on a web page is how that page can exist... payment of a small slice of your time.