Nagging subscription pop-up

[Chuckstar]

There’s a new subscription pop-up that has popped up for me about four or five times in the last fifteen minutes.

I have no problem with an occasional pop-up like that, but I’m hoping Ars didn’t mean for it to nag quite that often.

It’s also not immediately obvious how to dismiss the pop-up, since it’s one of those where you click on some unhighlighted text somewhere in the middle to dismiss it. The first time it came up, I just ended up doing a page reload because I couldn’t immediately figure out how to dismiss it.

 

[OrangeCream]

Mine went away when I disabled ad blockers.

 

[Defenestrar]

It’s also not immediately obvious how to dismiss the pop-up

Subscribe?

 

[Chuckstar]

Mine went away when I disabled ad blockers.

No ad blockers here.

 

[Aurich]

I'm on break this week, but I stopped in to let Jason know I'm seeing it too, something isn't working right.

We'll sort it, but it's not intentional that it's appearing like that.

 

[jmarlin]

Hmm - that sounds like something may have changed on Admiral's side (the service that handles those popups). We haven't touched it, so maybe it's a temporary thing, but we'll give it a look. Thanks

 

[jmarlin]

Can't seem to duplicate it here, so I'm hoping this was a temporary issue, but if any of you get another (if you've already got ads turned on), please share a screenshot.

 

[stdaro]

 

[stdaro]

what seems to trigger it is going to a thread and scrolling through it. it seems to reliably trigger within 12 or so page loads on different threads, usually when scrolling half-way or so down the page.

I'm running safari on mac. logged in, but not subscribed.

 

[jmarlin]

Just got one too. That particular campaign shouldn't even be running.

 

[jmarlin]

OK it sounds like they turned on something new that's showing false-positives. It is supposed to be rolling back as we speak.

 

[gobshiteyanks]

Who are "they"?

 

[continuum]

@gobshiteyanks see post #6.

 

[MichaelC]

that sounds like something may have changed on Admiral's side (the service that handles those popups)

/edit: Jinx!

 

[wildcardfoxy]

Getting it on every ars page now, even forums. On iPad in Chrome.

 

[Chuckstar]

It was fixed for me, this afternoon, and I wasn't online as early as wildcardfoxy saw it. So hopefully that just means that poster saw the very end of it.

 

[wildcardfoxy]

Just happened again for me, 9 am est. I’ll purge my cache.
. . . (Later)
purged cookies, cache, for the past week. Still happening in latest Chrome on iPad.

However, it is not happening in Safari, Firefox, or Brave. Of note, I am not logged into any of those on Ars. Will logout on Chrome, repurge cache/cookies, and not take over the thread

 

[jmarlin]

Just catching up on this thread - I thought we had this resolved last week. For people that are still getting it, can you please do a hard refresh and see if it persists?

 

[Carewolf]

Going to have to write a work around for this and upload it to the anti-ad blockers.

 

[Chuckstar]

I have seen this pop-up a couple times over the last week. IMHO, the number of times I've seen it is not at all an issue, but just letting you guys know in case you meant it to 100% go away.

 

[Da Xiang]

I've seen it over a dozen times in the last 30 minutes. Something is broken.

Edit to add: This is happening in Chrome but not when using Zen.

 

[Aurich]

I've seen it over a dozen times in the last 30 minutes. Something is broken.

Edit to add: This is happening in Chrome but not when using Zen.

Can you post a screenshot?

 

[Da Xiang]

 

[Da Xiang]

Appears every second or third topic opening in Chrome. It isn't happening with Zen at all.

 

[Aurich]

I mean, you're running an ad blocker. It's right there in your screenshot.

That's what triggers the popup, people ad blocking. So yeah, that's normal.

Maybe instead of blocking our ads you should try the suggestion to subscribe for an ad free experience that actually supports us? You've had an account here for 18 years, at what point do you decide you're staying and we're worth a couple bucks a month?

 

[rain shadow]

If money is tight, you can click on ABP and tell it to allow ads on arstechnica then you should at least get the expected ad experience.

 

[Da Xiang]

I mean, you're running an ad blocker. It's right there in your screenshot.

View attachment 107318

That's what triggers the popup, people ad blocking. So yeah, that's normal.

Maybe instead of blocking our ads you should try the suggestion to subscribe for an ad free experience that actually supports us? You've had an account here for 18 years, at what point do you decide you're staying and we're worth a couple bucks a month?

I am a senior living on Social Security with no savings due to heavy medical bills in the past. I run the same ad blocker in Zen and don't see the subscription nag every two minutes. An occasional request would be fine but I have to avoid Chrome now as that is excessively insane.

 

[Aurich]

I'm not going to guilt anyone for not subbing, if $25 a year is a hardship for you then I'm not judging.

But I'm really uninterested in having a discussion with anyone about troubleshooting their ad blockers.

We cannot provide Ars Technica for free. Our writers would like paychecks. I would like my paycheck! None of this just exists, we have to pay our bills like everyone else.

Either people can sub, or they can view ads, either way supports us. Running an ad blocker is just leeching and expecting other people to keep us alive for you.

If you see subscription nags while constantly loading our pages with an ad blocker that's just how it goes. We're not going to apologize for it, and it's not something to "fix", it's working as intended.

 

[Da Xiang]

I'm not going to guilt anyone for not subbing, if $25 a year is a hardship for you then I'm not judging.

But I'm really uninterested in having a discussion with anyone about troubleshooting their ad blockers.

We cannot provide Ars Technica for free. Our writers would like paychecks. I would like my paycheck! None of this just exists, we have to pay our bills like everyone else.

Either people can sub, or they can view ads, either way supports us. Running an ad blocker is just leeching and expecting other people to keep us alive for you.

If you see subscription nags while constantly loading our pages with an ad blocker that's just how it goes. We're not going to apologize for it, and it's not something to "fix", it's working as intended.

I understand. But I posted because I thought you were concerned that there was a problem with the frequency. Sorry if I misunderstood. I was trying to provide data to help solve a problem.

 

[Da Xiang]

And turning off the ad-blocker has eliminated the nag completely. So this is all about someone deciding to be punitive? Sorry. I understand now. I'll comply.

Edit to add: Ironically, I am in China so the ads I am now being fed at the top of each page are in Chinese Hanzi which I can't read....

 

[sorten]

This popup has displayed 4 or 5 times for me in a short span of time this morning. I'm a subscriber and I have ABP disabled for Ars. When I click on the "Already subscribed? Login" link, it tells me I'm already logged in (and I see my profile avatar on all pages). So I've been clicking "Continue without supporting us" to dismiss it.

edit: I notice that "Subscriptor" isn't showing in my profile block to the left. Interesting.

edit #2: Sorry, this is probably me. I just noticed that I had a very old email address attached to my profile. Looking into the sub issue.

 

[Aurich]

I see your sub badge, you good now?

 

[UserIDAlreadyInUse]

Hey, @Aurich? Not sure if it matters, but under stock Firefox - no extensions or blockers, just privacy settings set to always run in private mode - I'm neither seeing ads nor subscription pleas when not logged in like I used to. And this is on multiple systems so it's not just my setup. Not sure if that's intended or an edge case not worth worrying about.

 

[Aurich]

Hey, @Aurich? Not sure if it matters, but under stock Firefox - no extensions or blockers, just privacy settings set to always run in private mode - I'm neither seeing ads nor subscription pleas when not logged in like I used to. And this is on multiple systems so it's not just my setup. Not sure if that's intended or an edge case not worth worrying about.

I think that probably is what it is tbh.

We can keep chasing that forever without winning that race, or we can keep trying to put energy into making subscriptions worthwhile.