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We put some measures in place today to prevent people with adblockers having unfettered access to @kentonline Turn it off and you’re welcome back, keep it on in return for a small fee. As far as paid content models go, it’s pretty low-key - but the response has been interesting.
Those who have complained fall broadly into two camps - the naive and the obnoxious. The former seem genuinely bewildered about why we object to them turning off our digital revenue stream while reading the site for free.
I’ve carefully explained the reasoning to them (ads = money = food on reporters’ tables) and they usually understand. The latter are more intriguing.
They're the ones foaming at the mouth because we’ve turn off their ad-free tap. When you explain why, they invariably tell us our journalism isn’t worth paying for, our reporters can’t spell and we are generally really crap at our jobs. And then insist we still let them in free.
As I point out to them, this is the same as walking into a restaurant, eating all the food and refusing to pay. The same as telling the manager their food is inedible, the chef couldn’t boil an egg and the desserts give them the trots - but they’d still like some more for free.
Actually, there’s a third tribe - the smart arse. The ones who delight in posting comments advising people on ways of circumnavigating the ad block ban and then howl in outrage when we delete them. Sometimes somebody manages to be a naive, obnoxious smart arse all at once.
We should be used to rudeness now. I’ve been reading a Twitter account set up purely to insult journalists working at a daily title in the North East. Every typo, every misplaced comma, is seized upon as an excuse to bully and belittle reporters. It’s quite nauseating.
The response from some readers - and I have to believe they are a minority - to coverage of Black Lives Matters protests across the UK has been equally appalling. It comes to something when the editor of Plymouth Live has to threaten to report his own readers to the police.
I’ve veered a bit off topic I know, but I do wonder when people got so bloody rude. Visit our site using an ad blocker, post racist comments on stories, abuse my colleagues on social media and you’ll be kicked off our platforms without a moment’s hesitation.
