Feedback on TAB no longer supporting full-text feeds in NewsFire

[Shpigford]

Also, for what it's worth, this isn't a "bash David" thread. I'm not trying to attack David personally and would prefer people not resort to name calling.

This is just a subject I, as a business owner, feel pretty passionately about and am doing what I feel is necessary right now.

[thame]

Originally Posted by Slevin

So TAB isn't going to support NewsFire since NewsFire isn't going to allow ads in the reader. I find that disturbing, people pay money for newsfire and most people don't want to see ads so the dev doesn't allow ads in the reader which is fine because the dev isn't there to support TAB he is there however to support his customers.

NewsFire is making an assumption that it's users want ads blocked. I am a website owner and totally understand Josh's need to display ads. As a consumer of Josh's product (TAB), I want to support it by at the very least tolerating ads, but NewsFire doesn't let me.

[Huuuze]

Originally Posted by thame

NewsFire is making an assumption that it's users want ads blocked.

I was ready to debate this topic, but its true. NewsFire makes no mention of ad blocking on its website. While appreciated, it should be left to the user's discretion.

[Shpigford]

Originally Posted by Huuuze

I was ready to debate this topic, but its true. NewsFire makes no mention of ad blocking on its website. While appreciated, it should be left to the user's discretion.

Precisely. That's really the whole point of this. It's that users should be given the choice.

And in the name of being transparent regarding the NewsFire site mentioning ad blocking...it actually does mention in deep in the release notes. Of course...I'm not sure how many people actually dig through that.

But yeah, I'm sure a very large number of NewsFire users don't even realize they're blocking ads...whether they want to or not.

[toadkicker]

I'm with our leader on this one guys. If you want to block ads, you can do that. I've used ad-blocking software as well. But I'm the one choosing to do it, with the developers ad-blocking software, to specifically block ALL ads. Not just ones that are fed from two major vendors. This is a targeted approach, there is no option to allow/deny them, and that is the point. If Newsfire wanted to give users the option to block or allow ads from any network, then this wouldn't have even come up. It's what we call in California a '**** move dude'.

So with that said, Newsfire users we love you. We want you to read TAB, we want you to do it with Newsfire. We have bills to pay though. So we have some ads go with the feed. If you had the option to block them, that's your call. For now, this is the best choice with the business and technology model in place in order for TAB to exist with the lights on.

[DavidW]

This is the NewsFire developer.

I'm going to speak bluntly, because frankly I'm a little pissed off. Pigford either does not comprehend what I told him or is deliberately lying to create a controversy.

NewsFire’s developer has made it clear he doesn’t really have intentions to provide that feature...

Bullsh*t. I've told Pigford I'm entirely sympathetic to his position and my email said "I'll give it due consideration for the next release", which is as close to saying "yes" as I get.

To me it's an issue of a developer making a specific point to rob business owners of the way they support themselves.

What an utterly absurd statement. Regarding ad-blocking, I clearly said that I was "indifferent to its presence" as a feature. It was added only as a response to overwhelming user requests. The sole reason it's not a user preference is because, to this day, 24 months since its inclusion, not one user has asked for it to be a user preference (Pigford's the first, but he's not a NewsFire user).

There's no personal motivation from me on this, because for this feature, it's purely guided by the users. If Pigford thinks that listening to my users constitutes a conspiracy... well, enough said.

Now, despite my assurance that I'd give the issue proper consideration, evidently Pigford would have been happy with nothing less than an immediate reversal in policy delivered via software patch. But really, if timeliness were such a concern, why am I hearing about this now, a full 24 months after the very limited ad-blocking was added? He has ignored everything I said and is now inventing a fictional controversy. For what purpose, who knows?

Thanks,
David Watanabe

[piminnowcheez]

I support both decisions, yours (Josh's) and David Watanabe's. I don't know how other people use their readers, but even though I like full-text feeds, the main point of the reader is to help me filter what I do and don't want to read in full. So I'm perfectly happy if mine (which is NewsFire) just gives me a preview so I can decide if I want to read the post at the website (which NewsFire makes it easy to do). I subscribe to several feeds that don't support full text for exactly the same, perfectly understandable reason that you give: the ads pay the bills. It makes perfect sense, and I like free content, so yay, blogads. The only thing objectionable is when the truncated post visible in the reader is so short that it doesn't give me any idea of what the post is about.

On the other hand, an ad-and-other-visual-distractions-free environment is something I value very highly in my reader (really, it's the main reason I use one) so I can understand why Watanabe would be firm on this point. True, there's nothing wrong with having the choice to view ads, but we all ***** about feature-bloat in software and if he feels strongly about what his newsreader is supposed to be about, it's hard for me to find too much fault in his taking this particular hard line.

So personally, I don't find anything here to get angry about. I'll keep using NewsFire, keep scanning theAppleBlog posts with it, and start coming to the blog itself to read full posts (which I often do anyway), all happily.

[DavidW]

I can understand why Watanabe would be firm on this point

I'm NOT firm on the point. I don't give a ****. This feature is solely guided by the users. They asked for ad-blocking initially, and since then NOT ONE has asked to make it a user preference. If one is going to get angry, the target of that anger should be the users who demanded the feature.

[piminnowcheez]

ah, my post was written before seeing David W.'s.

[DavidW]

In fact, if you want to turn off ad-blocking, just remove the last lines of the NewsFire.app/Contents/Resources/Themes/Default/_Style.css file.

Easy!