
Disqus Ads Are No Longer Free to Disable - brianjackson
https://kinsta.com/blog/disqus-ads/
======
gobengo
The Mozilla Foundation's Coral Project has a full-time team building an open
source comments system with no ads. Follow the repo, forum, and/or slack for
updates.
[https://github.com/coralproject/talk](https://github.com/coralproject/talk)
[https://coralproject.net/](https://coralproject.net/)

~~~
JD557
Is it really a complete alternative? It looks like you have to host it
yourself (one of the main appeals of Disqus was that you could add comments to
any static page).

Also, it would be nice if they supported a SQLite backend, which would
probably make more sense for small blogs running on very weak shared servers.

~~~
stevekemp
Take a look at my toy project:

[https://github.com/skx/e-comments/](https://github.com/skx/e-comments/)

You can see them in use on my tweaked site, e.g:

[https://tweaked.io/guide/demo/](https://tweaked.io/guide/demo/)

------
JorgeGT
They seem to be the kind of advertisement I wouldn't certainly want to be
associated with ("Earn money online fast", "Doctors hate this new method of
losing weight" [1]) so it looks like I'm turning off comments in my blog. Does
anyone know a good alternative for static Jekyll sites?

\----

[1]
[https://twitter.com/amitbhawani/status/828554455876505601](https://twitter.com/amitbhawani/status/828554455876505601)

~~~
wutbrodo
I don't run an ad-blocker, but I blocked Disqus in my hosts file ages ago (as
a side effect, I don't see comments on sites that use Disqus; this has not
affected my life so far). Them and Taboola have always been the unabashedly
scummy bottom of the barrel: even before native ads were ubiquitous, they were
way ahead of the game with running extremely low-quality scam ads disguised as
publisher content.

------
philfrasty
So they basically distributed the product as „free“ to install on millions of
pages with the intention to turn them into an ad-network after some time?
Smart move...

~~~
niftich
I don't disagree, but this is basically the MO of almost every "free" social
network, messaging service, or image or content host since forever.

~~~
rch
How else is it supposed to work? Other than selling your browsing habits to
third parties so _they_ can advertise to you.

~~~
eridius
Start with a free product, and then add optional paid features onto it.

------
2bluesc
This article appears very WordPress centric. While I assume they'd add ads to
the Javascript downloaded and run on the page, there is a possibility of this
only applying to the plugin, does anyone know for sure?

I use Disqus on a static Jekyll generated page and adding ads to my blog
saddens me. My blog doesn't get much traffic, but it's always nice to see an
email when someone cares enough about what I wrote to comment. I fear I'll
have to migrate to something else if this holds true. Alternatives for my low
traffic, low touch (I'm not a web dev) blog?

~~~
e12e
Maybe muut.com?

~~~
jazoom
This looks interesting. Have you used it?

~~~
e12e
No, I don't really enjoy Web based comment platforms (including hn, but
there's no denying the positive network effect :-) - and would probably self-
host if I wanted one.

I've looked a bit at riot, their js framework though: riotjs.com.

------
spaceboy
The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click
ads—and that's ok: [https://www.ybrikman.com/writing/2014/08/10/the-best-
minds-o...](https://www.ybrikman.com/writing/2014/08/10/the-best-minds-of-my-
generation-are/)

Also relevant: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-14/this-
tech...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-14/this-tech-bubble-
is-different)

~~~
patrickaljord
I don't understand this obsession against ads on HN. The only countries that
don't have ads in the streets are North Korea and before that the Soviet
Union. It's a great way to let people know about your business and participate
peacefully into the free exchange of goods and services with our other fellow
human beings. And in computing it allows to offer amazing services to the
poorest for free (google, facebook etc). In Peru for example where I used to
live, students had to buy expensive books before or just couldn't find good
source of education for free easily to help them with their studies, they now
can and it really changed people's life (eg my wife's :)).

Edit: no need to downvote just because you disagree...

~~~
dgfgfdagasdfgfa
Whatever happened to paying for services? I can't even do that now if I want
to avoid staring at what someone else thinks I'd spend money on.

~~~
grzm
I agree, online ads are annoying for a number of reasons. I'm curious what pay
model you're envisioning. Content providers paying Disqus? Disqus users? I can
see the former possibly working, as Disqus is providing the service to them.

~~~
dgfgfdagasdfgfa
Frankly, I can't tell you the last time I found comments on an article to be
valuable. I spent the last half hour trying to work out the model before
realizing I wouldn't pay a dime for it.

But I'm also not the likely demographic, so I'm left with my foot in my mouth!
I can say I would pay for HN if it came to that, weird as that would be,
preferably in a flat fee because it's easier to budget. HN is the only similar
service I use.

------
webwanderings
I feel sad when I see Disqus enabled on some of the honest and serious
platforms, where conversation can be civil (and is generally civil) and
manageable (you get a sense of authentic participation and dialog). I most
often do not bother to login to participate because of these creepy issues
with privacy (tracking) and Ads. I understand they have to provide value and
make money, but ...

~~~
basseq
I only notice Disqus when it _doesn 't_ work—missing comments, broken links,
terrible Javascript loading, etc. So my impression of Disqus is their failure
case. I have no sense of implementations when it works well, let alone "long-
tail" issues like privacy or advertising. I just see the Disqus logo and
think, "Ugh... Discus."

------
raverbashing
As comment sections become increasingly toxic it seems discus won't be here
for long.

They seem to be an ok company, but their business model is a sinking ship

------
ocdtrekkie
I hadn't heard about this until now. And in my case, I'll be disabling Disqus
on the site I use it on. We don't have enough activity to justify a $10/month
charge, and I am not at all fond of their ad system. I totally understand the
reasoning, it just doesn't work well for us.

------
fosco
hosts file 127.0.0.1 disqus.com

also - to make the internet better
[http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/](http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/)

------
ffef
I don't understand why everyone is shocked, this is a good decision for the
company to generate more revenue.

~~~
minimaxir
Good decision for the company, but no upside for the user.

I have a strong policy against inline ads, so I may have to reconsider using
Disqus for my blog if this goes through. (Unfortunately, the only competiton
left is Facebook Comments)

~~~
ploggingdev
Suggestion : consider disabling comments on the blog.

I noticed that on most technical blogs, the discussions in the comments are
either non-existent or an "Awesome post" type response. The real discussion
happens on sites like HN, reddit.

There is no real downside to disabling comments altogether on technical blogs.
Just leave a PS asking for comments to be sent over email.

The upside to disabling comments : way faster load times and less data
transfer per request. Disqus makes like 30 odd requests to load their
comments.

Disqus also does some creepy things : when my blog experienced a spike in
traffic, Disqus suddenly decides to run ads on my blog without explicit
permission.

Regarding Facebook comments : :|

~~~
minimaxir
That's the case with Medium comments, but comments on my site do occasionally
point out holes/mistakes in my posts. Removing comments is certainly an
option, though.

------
overcast
As more, and more people are installing plugins just to hide comments, I can't
see this going well.

~~~
brightball
I feel conflicted right now. On the one hand, I'm really happy to know there
are plugins that I wasn't aware of to disable comments. On the other hand, I
learned about it from a comment...

~~~
basseq
... on a site where you come for the commentary. (And, by extension, that
commentary is healthy and helpful.) Those comment-blocking plugins just keep
you from being tempted to read the comments on other sites where the idiocy,
toxicity, and trolling is just mind-boggling.

------
tracker1
Wondering if this is an opportunity for something that can 1-click deploy to a
$5 Digital Ocean account would be worthwhile.

------
camus2
hmm, they have a paid plan WITHOUT ads. Isn't it the kind of model everybody
wants? free with ads, paid without ads?

~~~
WorldMaker
That's a fair point.

I've been wrestling with why I feel so uncomfortable with this move. About the
best analogy I've come up with: this feels like I've been using a maid service
for years. They've done a reliable job keeping my place clean for when I have
guests over. They decide that it is time to raise their rates, but rather than
come directly to me to negotiate a pay increase they decide that they can just
sell billfold space in my house when they clean.

It seems like a violation of a social contract, because my blog is my house
and I don't intend to have advertising there, even if I did I'm too small of a
fry to make any money that way.

I realize that no one wants to raise rates, and this sort of business model if
I had been given the choice up front I'd probably be fine with... If I wasn't
also growing increasingly weary of the race-to-bottom-feeding, increasingly
toxic ad markets, which has been a concern worrying me the last few months and
I haven't had any good ideas, but I certainly don't want my blog participating
in that for what tiny bit that is worth.

~~~
WorldMaker
Read the blog post and it does sound more reasonable that they mention
planning to talk to existing sites about the change before introducing ads
everywhere, which weakens my analogy a bit. Still doesn't assuage my secondary
concerns.

------
draw_down
You could see them going this route, so it isn't surprising.

But, I wish their product, which now requires ads or dollars, was actually
decent. As an unpaid/no-ads alternative to rolling your own it's barely
passable. But paying real money or serving ads, for this junk? No way.

------
aphextron
It's a good thing I've had '0.0.0.0 disqus.com" in my host file for years,
then.

------
revicon
As of this morning Disqus doesn't seem to be loading at all on my blog
([http://blog.mattcrampton.com](http://blog.mattcrampton.com)). It was working
fine a week ago.

------
rxlim
I hope this change will result in fewer sites using Disqus, because I really
hate that you have to enable Javascript just for reading comments.

------
e12e
Looks like this might be a good day for muut:

[https://muut.com/pricing/](https://muut.com/pricing/)

(Not affiliated, nor a customer - just became aware of them because of their
open source js framework, riot (riotjs.com)).

------
Markoff
there are still some people surfing internet without adblocker?

ublock on desktop, adaway, netguard or dozen alternatives on mobile

