The Ars Technica 2026 Reader Survey: Let your voice be heard!

Tell us how you read Ars, and what you'd like to see more (or less!) of on the front page.

See full article...

 

[pokrface]

Holler here if the survey link does weird stuff or otherwise doesn't work, and I'll have Moonshark find and eat the problems. Moonshark is hungry for errors.

 

[=j]

Regarding question 12, I hate them all. I barely tolerate affiliate links.

 

[J.King]

Regarding question 12, I hate them all. I barely tolerate affiliate links.

Yes, it was quite challenging to rank them, considering all are vaguely unpleasant. I made sure to put "sponsored articles" right at the bottom, though.

 

[RicDavis]

Regarding question 12, I hate them all. I barely tolerate affiliate links.

Kind of this (I'm fine with affiliate links). I accept the need for advertising. I'm not going to spend time with an irritating UI to rank them. - It is like sort your least favourite vegetable in order.

 

[DistinctivelyCanuck]

Holler here if the survey link does weird stuff or otherwise doesn't work, and I'll have Moonshark find and eat the problems. Moonshark is hungry for errors.

Heya: Adjust the survey so that when it ends, it comes back to Ars, not to Survey Monkey's advertising homepage.

 

[DistinctivelyCanuck]

Yes, it was quite challenging to rank them, considering all are vaguely unpleasant. I made sure to put "sponsored articles" right at the bottom, though.

For me, its the spammy videos.

TechCrunch has recently added this unblockable nightmare autoplay video that spams onto every single f***ing article. Ublock Origin isn't blocking it, and worse, at least in firefox, you can't rightclick to get to Ublock to "block this element" Makes me so insane that I've stopped going to techcrunch.

 

[J.King]

For me, its the spammy videos.

TechCrunch has recently added this unblockable nightmare autoplay video that spams onto every single f***ing article. Ublock Origin isn't blocking it, and worse, at least in firefox, you can't rightclick to get to Ublock to "block this element" Makes me so insane that I've stopped going to techcrunch.

"Video pre-roll" (which I'm not even certain of the meaning of) was second from the bottom for me, so I fully understand. One of the reasons why I gave sponsored article the place of dishonour is exactly because it's the sort of thing a technological solution like uBlock Origin is least likely to be able to suppress.

 

[J.R.G]

Kind of this (I'm fine with affiliate links). I accept the need for advertising. I'm not going to spend time with an irritating UI to rank them. - It is like sort your least favourite vegetable in order.

+1. This question was a very poor design decision. It's like voting in a political election with ranked-choice voting, and all 10 candidates are MAGAts.

 

[Hoptimist]

Regarding question 12, I hate them all. I barely tolerate affiliate links.

Maybe modify the question to allow subscribers to skip it, gotta emphasize those subscriber benefits!

 

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Thank you for taking this survey.

Though I made up all the advertisement topics I'm interested in. The proper answer would be none. I've been using an ad blocker ever since they became available in the early 2000s.

Recently I've even started to use Firefox to watch YouTube instead of the native app because YouTube ads have become obnoxious. Some videos now require you to watch three unskippable ads and then content creators even add their own sponsorship segments. This is just insane.

 

[pokrface]

+1. This question was a very poor design decision. It's like voting in a political election with ranked-choice voting, and all 10 candidates are MAGAts.

I totally get it, yeah. But I appreciate you holding your nose and powering through it. The idea is to ask what forms of advertising are most-to-least acceptable, so that when we investigate ad programs, we can steer toward options that more people hate less. "None" or "i piss on all ads" or "get f'd" or some other variation on that theme provides no useful data—I know that already

Will definitely remember this for next time, though—next time we do a stack rank of ad options, I'll make sure the question is optional. (Some brief investigation seems to indicate that editing the survey in flight will probably cause already-submitted responses to be marked invalid and tossed, and we've already got a few hundred completed responses in that I don't want to invalidate and lose.)

Maybe modify the question to allow subscribers to skip it, gotta emphasize those subscriber benefits!

That'd require us to give more data to surveymonkey so it could auto-differentiate, or to add an "I'm a subscriber so I never see ads anyway" bailout choice to the response options, which doesn't give us any meaningfully useful data. The better thing to do is to make sure the next time we do this in a few more years that the question is optional, which is what we'll do.

 

[fellow human]

Question 12 should probably include being flown somewhere by a company prior to reviewing their products.

 

[Oxyd]

Can't submit because question 12 requires an answer. Oh well. Ctrl+W

 

[cfenton]

Yes, it was quite challenging to rank them, considering all are vaguely unpleasant. I made sure to put "sponsored articles" right at the bottom, though.

Sponsored articles are intended to trick people and I hope I never see them on Ars. I don't think it's possible to be a reputable journalism site and take money for positive coverage.

 

[CoolDudePT]

Regarding question 12, I hate them all. I barely tolerate affiliate links.

Not to mention: Is 10 the most interested or the least?

 

[wxfisch]

I don't mind answering question 12, but the UI was atrocious. maybe it is a SurveyMonkey thing, but the drag and drop was inconsistent at best and changing the number didn't update the list and would get overwritten. If an unpopular question is going to be asked, at least make it easy to answer.

 

[Demosthenes642]

I totally get it, yeah. But I appreciate you holding your nose and powering through it. The idea is to ask what forms of advertising are most-to-least acceptable, so that when we investigate ad programs, we can steer toward options that more people hate less. "None" or "i piss on all ads" or "get f'd" or some other variation on that theme provides no useful data—I know that already

Will definitely remember this for next time, though—next time we do a stack rank of ad options, I'll make sure the question is optional. (Some brief investigation seems to indicate that editing the survey in flight will probably cause already-submitted responses to be marked invalid and tossed, and we've already got a few hundred completed responses in that I don't want to invalidate and lose.)


That'd require us to give more data to surveymonkey so it could auto-differentiate, or to add an "I'm a subscriber so I never see ads anyway" bailout choice to the response options, which doesn't give us any meaningfully useful data. The better thing to do is to make sure the next time we do this in a few more years that the question is optional, which is what we'll do.

Totally get that Ars needs ad revenue from non-subscribers to survive and am glad that you all are willing to consider which options are least odious. I'd just add that as a subscriber I am paying to support Ars's great journalism and for the convenience of no ads. I really would strongly prefer not to have ads served to me as "content" as a sort of end run to get to my eyeballs.

 

[eightycc]

Just finished the survey and came here to echo what others are saying: Question 12 is pure torture and did not capture my true feelings about advertising. None of it is of value to me and I avoid it by any means possible. I do not, under any circumstances, click on affiliate links. I stop reading the instant I smell even the tiniest whiff sponsorship.

 

[J.King]

I totally get it, yeah. But I appreciate you holding your nose and powering through it. The idea is to ask what forms of advertising are most-to-least acceptable, so that when we investigate ad programs, we can steer toward options that more people hate less. "None" or "i piss on all ads" or "get f'd" or some other variation on that theme provides no useful data—I know that already

I realize you have to pay the bills, so I took the time to answer honestly and carefully, for what it's worth. I'm not sure I would have answered were it optional, because it was easily the biggest time-sink of the whole thing. I suspect it might be one of the most important for you guys, though.

It might be helpful to preface the question with "We realize no one likes advertising, but..." or something of the sort, because the question as posed in the survey does come off a little tone-deaf, a little dystopian because it was phrased as if people might be excited about advertising, about being the product rather than the customer.

 

[UserIDAlreadyInUse]

Pity question 12 didn't have "Subscribe and skip ads" as an option.

And I find the lack of an "Indepth articles on the application of Mad Science; how to create  your first army of autonomous humunculii to power your world takeover bid" disappointing.

 

[Abulia]

Question 12 should probably include being flown somewhere by a company prior to reviewing their products.

Yea, “we don’t accept paid editorial content” vs “the author got a free trip to Italy” really isn’t much of a distinction, imo.

 

[hrobin]

So, Ars has a podcast, huh?

 

[PsychoArs]

Regarding question 12, I hate them all. I barely tolerate affiliate links.

I zoned out pretty quickly. Which is what I do with anything involving advertising.

I get it that it's apparently a large part of paying the bills. But that it can pay the bills is deeply disturbing to me.

 

[PhilipStorry]

All done.

Please give me at least 24 hours notice before Lee visits, as I'll need to deactivate the defence grid.

The Tesla coils are quick to spool down, but the Livens Gallery Flame Projectors take a while to secure. And lately some of the combat wombats have been wriggling out of their laser harnesses and going burrowing in the minefields. Honestly, it's more trouble than it's worth some days...

But for getting through all of that, I'll reward Lee with a dram or two. You all deserve one, so I'll make sure he takes samples away for you.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

 

[gruberduber]

I totally get it, yeah. But I appreciate you holding your nose and powering through it. The idea is to ask what forms of advertising are most-to-least acceptable, so that when we investigate ad programs, we can steer toward options that more people hate less. "None" or "i piss on all ads" or "get f'd" or some other variation on that theme provides no useful data—I know that already

Will definitely remember this for next time, though—next time we do a stack rank of ad options, I'll make sure the question is optional. (Some brief investigation seems to indicate that editing the survey in flight will probably cause already-submitted responses to be marked invalid and tossed, and we've already got a few hundred completed responses in that I don't want to invalidate and lose.)


That'd require us to give more data to surveymonkey so it could auto-differentiate, or to add an "I'm a subscriber so I never see ads anyway" bailout choice to the response options, which doesn't give us any meaningfully useful data. The better thing to do is to make sure the next time we do this in a few more years that the question is optional, which is what we'll do.

Also two small things about the ads ranking question.

1) I might have missed something in a rush but it wasn't actually stated whether 1 was best and 10 was worst I think? Not everyone mentally orders stuff like this in the same way so you might get some ranked backwards.

2) In the end I just picked picked at random because there is no type of ad that 'brings value' to me at all. I can't subscribe at the moment, and I appreciate ads keep the lights on so I get you need them, but if you force people to answer a question where they have to rank a bunch of stuff they equally hate, the rankings will be random and pollute the responses. I think the data you're going to get from that question will be bad and might mislead you. Just my opinion!

 

[thenamenottaken]

I attempted to fill out your survey but couldn't answer the question what ads I like. Unpleasant things are unpleasant.

 

[CrimsonEldritch]

Pity question 12 didn't have "Subscribe and skip ads" as an option.

And I find the lack of an "Indepth articles on the application of Mad Science; how to create  your first army of autonomous humunculii to power your world takeover bid" disappointing.

Agreed. I'll add to the chorus: I'm a subscriber because I want to support Ars without ads.

 

[RicDavis]

Yea, “we don’t accept paid editorial content” vs “the author got a free trip to Italy” really isn’t much of a distinction, imo.

Depends - I've had free trips to places which involved work. I'd rather not have had to spend the time on the trip.

 

[yakinabe]

When asking to rank things from 1 to 10, you should really explain whether 1 is best or worst.

 

[=j]

I zoned out pretty quickly. Which is what I do with anything involving advertising.

I get it that it's apparently a large part of paying the bills. But that it can pay the bills is deeply disturbing to me.

The thing is, I am getting the impression that ads don't pay the bills. Or at least not in the way they did in the past. Otherwise they wouldn't need surveys like these.

 

[fellow human]

Survey feedback: There should be a catch-all textbox, or maybe "like" and "dislike" ones. I get you're trying to focus us in on comparisons to other sites but we may have general feedback specific to Ars.

(personally I have a single major gripe about Ars that's not really in relation to other sites, but I put it in there anyway)

 

[InfernoBlade]

Advertising questions definitely should have some way to describe my opinion of "I subscribe because ads are anathema and I'd not read Ars without the option to get rid of them". The only ones I'll vaguely tolerate is affiliate marketing, because that's how certain valuable YT channels I follow get paid. But to have not even a reference to paying for Pro seems like a miss.

 

[MilanKraft]

Thanks Ars, for posting these. I think especially now, you should do them every 18-24 months as our technology and related practices shift under our feet.

To readers who are concerned about AI: this is your chance to rate and comment on the quality of some of the AI coverage we've seen and to spell out more generally what kind of role you expect Ars reporters to take in said coverage, vs the PR-like crap we see from most tech outlets and all generalist mainstream outlets.

 

[pokrface]

Advertising questions definitely should have some way to describe my opinion of "I subscribe because ads are anathema and I'd not read Ars without the option to get rid of them". The only ones I'll vaguely tolerate is affiliate marketing, because that's how certain valuable YT channels I follow get paid. But to have not even a reference to paying for Pro seems like a miss.

Addressed above, but repeating again just for visibility (and i'll promote one of these comments so more folks have an opportunity to see it before responding):

We already know how many folks subscribe—what the question is aiming at is trying to understand, when we're working with advertisers on campaigns, what things are least-unacceptable to the audience so we can steer the programs toward those options. "I subscribe, no thanks" and "nothing is acceptable" aren't useful responses and give no actionable data. We already know folks don't like ads, telling us this does not help answer the core question

Next time this comes up in a future survey, I'll make sure the question is marked as optional rather than required—that's the best way of handling it. Adding an "i already subscribe" bailout option doesn't yield useful data.

(I can't edit the survey once it's live without invalidating existing responses, so the question has to stay mandatory this time around. There are nearly 1000 survey completions recorded already and I don't want to lose them!)

 

[Mechjaz]

Survey feedback: There should be a catch-all textbox, or maybe "like" and "dislike" ones. I get you're trying to focus us in on comparisons to other sites but we may have general feedback specific to Ars.

(personally I have a single major gripe about Ars that's not really in relation to other sites, but I put it in there anyway)

I may have abused the response box a little bit but I also saw it as my opportunity to give feedback that's bigger than any one comment, but also hopefully more visible than an email that says "thank you for Drs. Mole and Timmer working diligently to unambiguously call bullshit on bullshit," as well as some critical feedback for things where I do hold Ars to a higher standard.

When we come down to the comments to point out of a Wired article "I thought this read like Wired," that's (not supposed to be) a backhanded compliment. It definitely signifies that we expect higher quality from Ars proper, though.

Edit: clarity

 

[GMBigKev]

Definitely shared in the "but I subscribed because I hate ads" thing, but do recall that Ars (and other sites) even if you are in a state you won't see advertisements still do affiliate marketing and sponsored articles. Think of it like - out of all of the things I hate, I hate this the most and this the least.

Though yea - 1-10 needed to be better explained.

 

[ack154]

I think question 12 just needed to be worded differently.

those you are most interested in to those you are least interested in​

I'm not "interested" in ANY advertising and expecting me to rank things I'm not interested in is.... a challenge. I would have maybe suggested being more forward with it like "those you find most to least acceptable" or "tolerable" or something along those lines. You know people don't like the advertising, be straight with it.

Question 13 isn't much better for me... literally zero advertising feels "valuable" to me and I'm not really even sure what that is even asking. The obvious choice is "nothing" but I'm really not sure I get the question. Is advertising supposed to provide me with some sort of value?

 

[GMBigKev]

I may have abused the response box a little bit but I also saw it as my opportunity to give feedback that's bigger than any one comment, but also hopefully more visible than an email that says "thank you for Drs. Mole and Timmer working diligently to unambiguously call bullshit on bullshit," as well as some critical feedback for things where I do hold Ars to a higher standard.

When we come down to the comments to point out "I thought this read like Wired," that's (not supposed to be) a backhanded compliment. It definitely signifies that we expect higher quality from Ars proper, though.

I'd appreciate a general comments box - even one that's optional for stuff like that. It would be a good place to put some suggestions and frustrations that don't necessarily have a better place elsewhere.

 

[=j]

Fundamentally, the problem with advertising is it is never the content I am looking for. I suppose I could appreciate them as tiny bits of found art... but really the artistic value was never that high. And seems to be rapidly deteriorating.

Even if it was the highest quality of art, I still don't think I would visit one site over an other because of it.

I don't think there is a way to square this circle.