9 Comments

Byte had this on lockdown. They’d sell spots to anyone, as big as the people wanted, and just make the magazine thicker to accommodate their insanely long and in-depth articles, at least for the first 20 years, and then in the late 90s, they kind of succumbed afaik.

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Early BYTE was such a fun magazine.

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Aside from conflicts of interest, mainstream websites are so encrusted with ads they look grotesque. Are there really so many actual people who check out that mess and even click it?

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Many sites are almost literally unreadable without an ad blocker.

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So true!

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It's not advertising, it's greed.

Once upon a time media publications had standards for ads and took pains that they not be offensive or overly sneaky.

And this actually helped the publication -- and advertisers.

Who wants to read something in an environment that is unpleasant, especially with the all the options.

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To be fair, media today in general is all about access and advocacy and also, clickbait (dangit, I almost had a awesome alliteration).

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Yes, I agree. And I'd like to add one other quick thought to this that's been driving me insane lately as a founding subscriber. I mean this with great respect for you and your work, so I hope this constructive criticism is taken in that light.

I'm really tried of seeing constant ads for something I've already paid for.

I signed up for the founding membership to both support your work and to vote with my dollars for the content I like to consume. I don't like to consume ads. And yet at least three times a week I get ads for membership I already have.

I mentioned this a while back and cancelled my renewal, but I still have some time left on my yearly subscription. And it's still happening to the point where I'm strongly considering unsubscribing from the emails.

Granted, my voice may not matter as much since I canceled the renewal, but I can't be the only one this bothers. Advertising is advertising, and if I pay money to not see it, that's what I expect.

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Your voice totally matters! And your support is appreciated!

Here's my thoughts:

The Lunduke Journal only promotes The Lunduke Journal. Never any other company, product, etc. No product placements, no affiliate links, no banner ads... nothing.

I try to keep the promotion of The Lunduke Journal to a minimum. Currently that means less promotional content than any other publication I am aware of.

That said, I also want to not be sending self-promoting emails to those of you who have subscriptions. Until now that has been difficult as I did not have a feature to make that work. Luckily, Substack jas just added a more comprehensive tagging system for subscribers. With a little work on my part that will make it so Founding Members (etc) will not be receiving self-promoting emails going forward! Which is pretty cool!

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