Why have all news sites turned into total spam?

Eric

Eric

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It's like a hellscape of popups, nag screens, and forced cookies. We're reduced to reading headlines and most of them are misleading.
 
Eric said:
It's like a hellscape of popups, nag screens, and forced cookies. We're reduced to reading headlines and most of them are misleading.
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Subscribing to Apple News is one option. Blissfully free of ads. Depends on the source you want though.
 
Just speculation. I'd imagine they are struggling for traffic even more so now because of the AI result provided by ChatGPT as well as Google and search engines. Therefore the sites are trying harder to compensate for it. To make it worse a lot of attention is now spent on TikTok and YouTube news videos instead of text.
 
Eric said:
It's like a hellscape of popups, nag screens, and forced cookies. We're reduced to reading headlines and most of them are misleading.
Click to expand...
Haven't noticed tbh, but I don't spend a lot of time on news sites as they're typically just regurgitating things from twitter 2-3 days later - and have pretty good ad blocking and anti-asshole browser plugins.

StopTheMadness
1blocker

seem to take care of most of the crap
 
Eric said:
It's like a hellscape of popups, nag screens, and forced cookies. We're reduced to reading headlines and most of them are misleading.
Click to expand...

Though I subscribe to the NYT, WaPo, and The Atlantic, lately I seem to be spending a lot more time with the BBC.

They have excellent US coverage, along with world news. And it's free. For me it's kind of like when in my youth I did a lot of shortwave listening, including the BBC (and a few dozen other world broadcasters), and have been reacquainted with an old friend now being online.
 
Edd said:
Subscribing to Apple News is one option. Blissfully free of ads. Depends on the source you want though.
Click to expand...

I looked at News on my Mac the other day, just the regular, not News+, and it looked seriously garbagey. Seemed like half the actual headlines (not the ads) had a strong scent of clickbait about them, and some others were advertainment. I am not inclined to pay the subscription fee if News+ looks anything like that. Especially if they are or intend on using ML to enhance market targeting on me.
 
Yoused said:
I looked at News on my Mac the other day, just the regular, not News+, and it looked seriously garbagey. Seemed like half the actual headlines (not the ads) had a strong scent of clickbait about them, and some others were advertainment. I am not inclined to pay the subscription fee if News+ looks anything like that. Especially if they are or intend on using ML to enhance market targeting on me.
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Gotta curate, just like with a music service. Takes time.
 
Edd said:
Subscribing to Apple News is one option. Blissfully free of ads. Depends on the source you want though.
Click to expand...
Sorry but Apple News is trash, if I block a channel, rather than remove it, it shows this (cheers, apple for completely missing the point!)
Screenshot 2025-06-16 at 4.00.40 pm.png



That's not blocking, and just leaving a big box with the headline and "you blocked this" is worse than useless.
 
throAU said:
Sorry but Apple News is trash, if I block a channel, rather than remove it, it shows this (cheers, apple for completely missing the point!)
View attachment 35584


That's not blocking, and just leaving a big box with the headline and "you blocked this" is worse than useless.
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Can’t argue with that, I was just pointing out ads are minimal if subscribing.
 
Edd said:
Can’t argue with that, I was just pointing out ads are minimal if subscribing.
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That site i blocked is generic clickbait shit, i am a paid subscriber.

I can block ads on news sites with a combination of 1blocker and StopTheMadness. In the Apple News app.... that shit, despite being a paying customer.
 
Followed a link to the NY Post, had to turn off both ad blockers and then the page took 20 seconds to load and the top 1/3 was hijacked by an ad that scrolled with you, and there were ads between every paragraph. Scrolling is jumping all over the place and jittery because it's so heavily bogged down and this is on a Macbook M1.

Seriously, try for yourself but don't say I didn't warn you.
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