Hey everyone, your old pal Matt here. As the publisher of The Autopian, it’s my job to make sure we have enough money to operate. One of the ways we do that is with advertising. Another way we do that is with membership. As a journalist and a fan of all the writers here, I much prefer the membership route to random display ads.
Last week, I went to a conference as a guest focused on ad tech. It was quite the eye-opening experience. I’ll explain my reasoning in a minute, but the general conclusion I came to was that we probably need to be a little more dynamic with our ads for non-members, and we should definitely work harder to make the experience much better for paying members.
That means we’re turning off autoplay on videos for members right now. If you’re a logged-in member and are reading a post, it’s your choice if you want the video to play or not. We’re now merging our Instagram content with our video offerings on mobile and otherwise experimenting with how to make the player more useful for everyone. Because we produce a lot of Instagram videos, this has fit nicely into our routine. On desktop, feeding the player mostly requires putting up more 16×9-oriented videos, and we’ve been slow to do that (thus, if you come here often, there’s a lot of repetition).
The way these players work is that they need to have high visibility in order to actually make money (this is why non-members get a player that follows them around the page). The best way to ensure high visibility, I believe, is to have great content that matches what you’re reading. We’re doing ok at that, but could be better. The other way to do it, and the way used by basically every website on the planet, is to autoplay the video. Ad tech people hope you like the video being shown, but they need you to watch a bunch of ads, or they don’t make any money.
I want us to make money. In addition to being sustainable, I think media can be a good business if more power is put into the hands of the creators. I want to prove this. Doing so means taking power away from those who merely see content as something to be optimized and monetized, and not actually enjoyed. We’re extremely lucky that everyone here believes in what we’re doing both editorially, as well as seeing the big commercial potential, and that the two are connected.
This is another step we’re taking to show that readers, when given a choice, will support publications that build community and listen to them. Members complained about the autoplay, so for now it’s off. If you’re not a member, seeing the ads is a part of how you contribute, but the way this works, you’d have to read thousands of articles to provide as much monetary backing as becoming a member at the lowest annual level.
If you like to read this site and are not a member, but want to become one (or you let your membership expire): click this link or add the coupon code noplay to your membership purchase, and I’ll give you $10 off any annual plan. That means for less than $ 4 a month, or a cup of very cheap coffee, you can support the Autopian by becoming a Cloth Annual member.
Either way, thank you for being here!
Top photo: depositphotos.com
The coupon doesn’t seem to work on Cloth plans… (That is the one which makes your coffee math work.)
Didn’t work upgrading to Vinyl, either, but that’s OK. Use that extra $10 to buy a couple coffees, Matt!
Try it now! Just reset the coupon. Sorry about that.
Thank you, Matt! I don’t like autoplay anything.
Thank you, Matt!
THANK YOU! I HATE autoplay videos of any kind, even if they’re news stories or whatever (i.e.- not just ads). If I want to watch a damn video of something I’ll go to YouTube!
As the spouse of someone who makes her living from a website, I totally understand the need for revenue, so I’m on my way right now to upgrade my existing membership as a small token of thanks.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Auto-play ads are the bane of the internet for me. Sites like, e.g., most newspapers are absolute garbage to use and so bad due to ads that they are unusable and I have stopped visiting whole categories of sites completely due solely to this. I will never stop visiting the Autopian but I sure to appreciate this.
I swear I could quit using my RSS reader. I just use it for here, PostSecrets, and sometimes High Snobiety. I can pretty much disregard the rest of the internet and not feel like I am missing something.
This place rules.
I appreciate the transparency you all provide into the media business — explaining not just the change you made, but why it matters.
For the record, I never minded autoplay on this site, because as an employee of a media company I understand the need for revenue, but I appreciate that you’re constantly looking at how to improve the UI for members. Thank you.
As someone in the business, can you explain why autoplaying video brings in money?
I get that if you play a video there are eyes on that video that could see the ads embedded in the video.
But why aren’t the advertisers aware that nearly everyone is annoyed by them, maybe stops them from playing or generally ignores them? Are they willing to pay that much on the off chance they get just a few eyeballs on some extra ads? That may or may not be relevant to the topic on the page and therefore not the target audience for the product/service?
I honestly have such a hard time believing this is an effective way to pay for ad placement.
Not a paying member… yet….. But I can really appreciate a place that listens to it’s audience. That doesn’t happen often anymore.
Could you fix your login procedure?
Yeah, I’m on Firefox on a Mac and no one uses Firefox anymore. No one drives old cars, either. </s>
Ok, you finally got me to pony up. Just to double check, is the $10 off annual only for Vinyl and above, or does it work on Cloth too? [yes, I’m a cheapskate]
It should work in Cloth Annual or any annual plan.
thank you! it wasn’t earlier, but works now. just checked out.
It’s a sad world where $4 is considered a cheap cup of coffee.
Where I live, this is still a (very) expensive coffee.
Coffee is about $6 minimum around here, but there’s a bunch of coffee shops so at least you have options.
Yeah, unless you’re getting something fancy involving foam and such, coffee is usually $2 max.
Damn, where do you live? I may want to retire there! Just looked it up, even IHOP charges $3.59 for drip.
I had to check, and I stand corrected. Dunkin is $2.19. So a little more than I thought. (I don’t buy coffee that often.)
Hey – Tariffs must be paid –
Because we can’t have Juan Valdez and his donkey, Conchita, ripping us off!
There are two things going on here. First, Brazil had a bad drought, and apparently they are the benchmark for bean prices worldwide. Second, Matt lives in NY, where everything is more expensive.
But, yeah, $4 for a serving of coffee is crazy talk. Keurig for the win, I suppose.
For home, I recommend following Unca-Adrian’s advice and going with a Moka pot and Lavazza or Caffe Vergnano coffee. Best home brewed coffee I’ve ever had. And at $4 a cup for the coffee shop alternatives, pays for itself in a month or two.
A couple years ago I got a plain ass iced coffee from a drive thru (it was apparently some local “craft” coffee place I didn’t realize initially) and they shoved the credit card reader out the window showing something like $11. I figured it must be a mistake, they put two on there, or something. Nope. The coffee was $6. That place charged 50c each for cream and sugar. Then a 75c “service charge”, and tax. Of course there is a tip set to thirty-fucking-percent by default which I enthusiastically hit “custom” since there was not a “no thanks” button. It was also 97% ice so the coffee was gone in about 4 sips.
Seeing $11 for a coffee left me so shell shocked I haven’t bought coffee out since. I got a decent espresso machine and just make my own now. The machine easily paid for itself within a year, the coffee tastes way better/stronger than the shitty fake keurig thing I had before and realizing just how cheap/easy a basic cup of coffee is, I realize why coffee shops are absolutely fucking everywhere, they must be a goldmine.
So thank you, Snobby Overpriced Hipster Beanwater Emporium for motivating me to make much better coffee at home for far cheaper.
Was in NYC last week, had my first $10 latte.
And there was much rejoicing.
Yaaaaay.
I appreciate this as a weird person that would rather read in peace and quiet.
Sounds like a good move to me!
Another suggestion is to cross-upload everything that autoplays from here and goes up on your Instagram to Youtube as well. And TikTok. And whatever other new platform comes up.
That’s a weird way to admit that autoplaying videos are undesirable.
Since it’s my job to make sure we don’t have to lay anyone off, it’s a little less undesirable to me.
I mean, that’s life? The internet advertising game is a tough one. Anyone sufficiently motivated can block ads.
Yes, layoffs suck. But be around any industry long enough, and you’ll see it. Hell, even starting to see it in government.
I’m confused by what you are saying. That Matt just .. shouldn’t care if he can’t pay the bills and has to lay people off? That he should figure out how to support this website without web ads? (which they are doing by offering subscriptions)? Its no secret that pretty much everyone hates autoplay videos/ads so I also don’t think he’s admitting anything here? Anyhow, have a good one.
This really only matters for people who are raw-doggin the internet without some sort of ad filtering or content controls. Most of them have a quick toggle for “turn off large video elements”. Does no good for most iOS users since you can’t have such things.
I’m doing my part!
Wait a sec, iOS doesn’t allow adblockers?
It definitely does. As well as other types of content blockers.
Many are not free so perhaps that’s what Dingus means. Which sounds insulting but I didn’t choose the username.
Nobody was under any illusion that autoplay videos are desirable (same with ads). But they allow us to provide the world with free content. And given that our company’s mission statement involves promoting car culture, that means we need to be accessible to people from all walks of life — so we’re keepin’ the autoplay videos. (But become a member and they’re — POOF — gone!)
WOW I didn’t realize this
“you’d have to read thousands of articles to provide as much monetary backing as becoming a member at the lowest annual level.“
Yeah, ad revenue per-impression is incredibly tiny. That’s why successful sites need to have massive traffic to be sustainable. When an ad view only pays .001 cents (a number I just made up, but it’s some extremely small amount like that), you need a lot of them to make a buck. It’s also why Patreon, SubStack, and the like are becoming more popular ways for creators to support themselves.
Hurray! Could you buy all the other websites and make the same change, please?
If enough of you sign up to be members, sure.
My phone battery loves you right now
Excellent! Also, did the Slack channel get nuked or did I just get bounced off of it?
The Discord? It still exists.
OMG, I need more sleep. Thanks Matt!
We’re testing how it works and there have been some issues on tablets, FYI, wherein it’s easier to trigger the video. I think we’ve addressed it, but lemme know.
I’m still getting auto play on desktop and phone (windows/ Chrome and Android/ Chrome). I double checked and my membership is still active
Log out and log back in and dump cookies? If that doesn’t work, drop me a line.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Also, I didn’t know about your Instagram presence, like, at all. I’m not much into watching videos (or Insta) but I’m kinda shocked I wasn’t even aware.
And there was much rejoicing!
The Autopian: continuing to be the best place on the internet. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!