BBC iPlayer loophole to be closed and also ad blockers to be looked at

I always run a adblocker.

Personally I couldn't give a rats ass if your crummy little website needs the ads to survive.. Either

Do it for the love.
OR get a business model that works without me having to use add blockers.
 
a1ex2001 said:
because some of the companies running adblockers ask websites to pay to be whitelisted so that there adds appear anyway, not quite the protection racket with the bats etc but pretty shoddy business practice.
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This is just Adblock Plus, from what I understand. uBlock Origin (Chrome, Firefox) is far superior to Adblock Plus. uBlock accepts donations, but uBlock Origin, which was developed by the original uBlock author specifically refuses donations.

Diddums said:
... if I ever figure out how to block ads on my Android phone (hint hint) ...
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Firefox Mobile allows for add-ons, but Chrome Mobile doesn't, so I switched to Firefox for all my mobile browsing and... ah, peace again. :D

- Firefox Mobile
- uBlock Origin

Browsing MacRumors with Chrome:

EfWYv8I.png


Browsing MacRumors with Firefox + uBlock Origin:

TjOO1th.png


Diddums said:
... Adapt or die. It's not rocket science.
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I think that there will be an increase in paywalls for the really, really good websites, like The FT. The content is so good that (many) people who specifically want that content *will* pay for it.

I sometimes like to watch the odd Starcraft 2 VOD and the best website for finding the good VODs is http://sc2casts.com/. The author of the website added all sorts of ad-blocker blocker mechanisms and the latest incarnation is to use JavaScript to dynamically generate a randomly named splash screen element that covers the whole screen. Many people tried to figure out customized uBlock rules to filter it out but it is hard to do due to the fact that it dynamically generates randomly named HTML elements. The solution? Disable JavaScript on that website. :D The embedded YouTube videos won't play due to JavaScript being disabled, but YouTube helpfully provides a link in its embed frame to see the video on the actual YouTube website.
 
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d_brennen said:
BBC should have become digital subscription years ago.
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BBC should be funded out of direct taxation.

The "License" as a funding model was fine when only a small proportion of the population made use of the service.

Nowadays, one way or another, everybody does. so funding out of general taxation is perfectly reasonable.

d_brennen said:
Don't get whatever awful dross/quality programming (delete as appropriate) that the BBC serves up.
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Oh, And yes, I like the idea of a publicly funded non commercial broadcaster.

You really think the BBC is dross? Really??

There are aspects of it that bugs me but none of that is unresolvable!

EG BBC's recent show "Dickension" I really liked it. a full 30 minutes (or just less) of continuous very good entertainment per episode.

Plenty of opportunity to build up a degree of narrative momentum.

Not the two 8 minute slots separated by a massive ad break that the commercial channels typically provide in a similar 30 minute broadcasting slot!

Is that better TV, Really!??
 
The BBC does still make good shows.

But it has also decided to copy shows from ITV especially, doing the same crap celebrity/reality shows as they do only at our expense :(

That kind of stuff should stay on ITV tbh. The BBC doesn't need to have "clone" shows for everything ITV puts out. Most of it is guff anyhow.
 
I cant remember the last time i watched live tv. I dont even have the aerial connected to anything.
I use adblock on everything because of the sound/video adds.
Any tv shows i,m watching i download the episode online and watch when i want.
 
There's some BBC conrent I like, and it's the only TV content I ever watch live. Everything else goes via PVRs, so that I can skip or delete adverts.

As for website ads, blockers are here to stay for me, and for the reasons others have given, mainly that advertisers abused us, made the user experience so horrible that I now block everything and everything. There are a few sites I do pay for access to, like the Economist, and a few more for which a modest sub would be acceptable. What I won't put up with is excessive adverts. So either I use a blocker, or I won't visit that site. I don't mind paying for access, but I certainly mind wasting my time on adverts.
 
All they need to do is let you enter your license number and allow up to say, 8-10 devices to access. It would be very very easy to police.

Obviously you'll have people that share logins and so on, but Sky are able to handle this reasonably well and only let you change devices a certain amount with their Sky Go service.
 
Yep easy. Continue the current TV licence but link it to an online account like you would with Netflix or Amazon Prime.

I don't have a TV Licence because I don't watch live TV, but I watch iPlayer alongside Prime and NF. Now if there was an option to pay a subscription for iPlayer I would probably pay for it (but it would have to be competitive for the content offered), and if I didn't want to watch BBC stuff any more I could live without.
 
Orionaut said:
BBC should be funded out of direct taxation.

The "License" as a funding model was fine when only a small proportion of the population made use of the service.

Nowadays, one way or another, everybody does. so funding out of general taxation is perfectly reasonable.
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No it shouldn't
It's not a required service like roads, schools or collecting your bins

And it is becoming less and less important.

Just because you use it doesn't mean everyone does. And it is far from essential.
 
If every single non-retail website charged and there were no advert-based free alternatives available, what websites would you absolutely have to pay for ?

I would need a personal webmail account which I would only pay for if all my contacts and emails were private (ie. not sold on) and one news website (probably one of the newspapers). I wouldn't pay for any audio or video content (TV, youtube, Spotify) nor social media for personal use. For business I would need at least two other email accounts, at least one social media platform, a good tech forum for programmers, and certain scientific journal publisher subscriptions.

Oh, and GD, obvs :D
 
413x said:
No it shouldn't
It's not a required service like roads, schools or collecting your bins

And it is becoming less and less important.

Just because you use it doesn't mean everyone does. And it is far from essential.
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What a R argument, lots of stuff that government funds through tax isn't essential. However most do benefit the uk, as does the BBC.
 
They will never be able to stop ad blockers. At the end of the day you could go on to your router and firewall all the ad servers.

As for the TV licence, it should be scrapped completely. It's 2016 not 1916.
 
413x said:
No it shouldn't
It's not a required service like roads, schools or collecting your bins

And it is becoming less and less important.

Just because you use it doesn't mean everyone does. And it is far from essential.
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Just because it's not essential doesn't mean it shouldn't be publicly funded. I'd rather the BBC budget be cut in half and then paid for through general taxation rather than the existing model based on licenses and inspections and all that nonsense.
 
I started to use an adblocker as I felt like I was being stalked as my shopping/browsing was following me from site to site.

With the exception of movie trailers, I honestly think that it has near zero affect on my purchasing and as such I see it as a complete waste of my time.

I also think that the license fee/tax should be abandoned and IMO it does not represent value for money, with the BBC TV, Radio, Website going along the advertising route.
 
Nasher said:
They will never be able to stop ad blockers. At the end of the day you could go on to your router and firewall all the ad servers.

As for the TV licence, it should be scrapped completely. It's 2016 not 1916.
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Right, but millions of people still watch BBC's content so where will money come from if there is no tv licence?
 
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