The Real Current State of Web Design

I've always heard people suggesting that one should disable Adblock on sites that you like to support them. But I'd think most people who can will still block ads (I do; they're distracting). Trying to support the site by disabling ads seems to just encourage the site to continue using what will eventually be an ineffective way of making money.<p>Couldn't you make the argument that by disabling ads you're "voting with your wallet" and forcing them to find a more sustainable source of income?

Somehow, Smashing Magazine is broke. Their content is incredible but they can't pay the bills.<p>"I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars / they criticize me for it; but they all yell 'holla!'"<p>Smashing, your move.

I am not so much against the adds on SM as I am against the content they use to create page views for those ads.<p>SM started out really nice and it's articles where actually interesting to begin with.<p>Now they are just diversifying out posts to cover anything of the slightest interest to webdesigners in order to get more advertising doh.<p>Nothing against that business model but I can find better ways to spend my time than to read about "10 trends/ways/free font/icons/to/ improve/help/make X"<p>Most of that is so simplistic and misleading it's not even funny.

In a perfect world, websites with 10s of millions of page views that pays for dozens of writers should have little to no ads. We don't live in a perfect world.<p>There are few sites where I disable my adblock+, SM is one of them.<p>The op probably don't have any experience running a big site like this.

The bradley_outline.png background image on this page is 617KB in size. About ten times bigger than it needs to be. I wonder how much web bandwidth is wasted by poorly optimised images. Maybe there is a business opportunity in an automated tool to detect these ... just musing to myself.

Thank to HN, I've now got a bunch of design sites I visit several times a week. I've always been surprised by the number of ads they have as well as the annoying way they're done. Very odd to have design sites doing something so tasteless and obnoxious.

It`s just funny how SM has a huuuge following and the main way they want to monetize the traffic is through Ads. Is that really the answer to making money on the internet these days? I`m really tired of seeing great sites and startups, fail at the basic principle = making money. There`s so many ways to develop a product or service for your audience that already enjoys your content and comes back for more, it`s not even funny.<p>btw. I think Smashing Magazine pumps out great content and is consistent in doing so.

i thinks this is exactly why an application like Instapaper is so successful.

I laughed too.<p>A veritable SEA of ads like that is sadly not that uncommon these days...

There's a fortune to be made in selling high-quality, in-depth content.<p>There's a dwindling few pennies left in the ad business.<p>Moreover, the more people try to "monetize" and grab those few pennies - the fewer pennies there are. The more advertising, the less effective.<p>On the other hand, the more people wise up and charge for great content, the more people will be used to paying.<p>The rule is this: Always do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. There will always be a backlash - and you want to catch it as it just starts.

Sure, it is a sad story indeed, but does this story really belong on HN?<p><a href="http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a>