(no subject)

[randomness]

A website that demands that I give them an email address or sign up with Facebook or some other social media account before I can even look at anything simply won't get my business.

At best, if I'm feeling cranky, I'll give them some fake address. But mostly I'll just close the window and move on.

This tactic must work for some viewers but I don't have to encourage it myself.

ETA: Deliberately not giving examples because I'm not going to give them the traffic.

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Facebook has invested a lot into becoming a sort of "driver's license for the web" or single unifying ID. And yes, there are lots of sheep who will willingly log in to random stuff with Facebook. It's one reason (among many) that I dislike Facebook.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

They do give the option of giving an email address instead, which is something. However, I don't want to give that either, and they give no option of simply closing the box and looking at the site.

At that point it's clear they want something from me before they'll even show me what's for sale, which I personally simply laugh at. "Nice try. Next!"

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I feel similarly about sites that won't allow me to view any content unless I disable my adblocker. No thank you I don't want your site's drive-by malware. (Forbes, I'm looking at you.) (http://www.networkworld.com/article/3021113/security/forbes-malware-ad-blocker-advertisements.html)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't even have an adblocker running and I get that notice. I think they're seeing ghostery installed and thinking it's an adblocker.

I manage to read Forbes articles anyway somehow. I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing but I can nonetheless.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I ran into that with Forbes this week and decided I didn't want to read that article enough to be patronised by Forbes before I even got to it! I'm running Disconnect and Privacy Badger and there are things I disable them for but Forbes is not one of them.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Btw happy birthday ;)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Thanks! A couple more days yet (or a few by the Chinese calendar) but thanks for remembering!

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

Yep, this.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't jump through hoops to view stuff, that's just ridiculous. On the other hand, I don't run adblockers, because that's the coin moderate websites use to fund themselves, and I won't take that away from them. (I'm on Macs, so malware, usually not an issue.)

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

Agreed one hundred thousand percent.

Facebook in particular can go to hell and die.