misc

Disqus: End of Discussion

noraj (Alexandre ZANNI)
,
🇬🇧

Introduction: the error of not choosing#

Disqus is one of the major third-party commenting and discussion system.

However, I never really chose to use Disqus. It was a bit of an imposition because it was more or less the only system supported for my theme. Indeed, hexo-theme-hueman was supporting Disqus, Duoshuo and YouYan. Later more comment system support were added, but most of them were Chinese only. So I ended up picking Disqus because it was the only Latin language friendly option.

As I never really checked the pros and cons, or compared it with competitors I was happy about it until they forced ads injection into my website.

Disqus force ads on basic plan https://e.customeriomail.com/deliveries/dgTw7wMAAOLwe93wewGUwlkPmKSlkSOlCY6C5V8=

Hi there,

You're currently on our free Disqus Basic plan, which is our ad-supported tier that comes with only the most rudimentary features.

Ads will begin appearing on your comment section shortly.

Not interested in ads? No problem—we offer ad-free subscription packages, Disqus Plus and Disqus Pro, that come with more advanced engagement features like community Badges, enhanced moderation features that get rid of spam & toxic comments, and powerful analytics dashboards that give you detailed metrics about your commenting community that the content that resonates with them.

We're currently offering free 30-day trials of both Disqus Plus and Disqus Pro. Just click the button below to learn more about our ad-free subscription packages and sign up for your free trial today!

Source: email "Account update: ads will begin appearing on your comment section" from hello@disqus.com, 01/03/2025

The beginning of the end#

About one month after I received this message, Disqus started to inject ads in my section comment, because I was using the Basic Plan (Free).

It could be ok, since it's a free plan, it could be a way to pay for it.

But is the ads in an acceptable format? Respecting privacy? Will they share revenue with me?

Sharing revenue#

A month after I was told now ads are forcefully injected into my website, I was also invited to check if I'm eligible to earn from the revenue sharing program.

Disqus offers a sharing revenue program https://e.customeriomail.com/deliveries/dgTw7wMAAOLwe93wewGUwlkPmKSlkSOlCY6C5V8=

Hi there,

You're currently using our ad-supported Basic plan. Did you know that you can potentially begin earning a significant portion of your ad revenue? For eligible publishers, we offer a generous revenue-sharing program that aims to give back to our customers.

Interested in seeing if you qualify? Just go ahead and respond directly to this email and we'll get back to you with more information.

Do you want to remove ads completely? We have ad-free subscription plans, Disqus Plus and Disqus Pro, that both come with advanced features and functionality. Check out our pricing & plans page for more information about how to subscribe and remove ads today.

Source: email "Want to start earning a share of your ad revenue?" from hello@disqus.com, 01/03/2025

I already knew I would remove Disqus from my website as I don't want ads on it. But I wanted to check what they had to offer to see if was a scam (90% for them and 10% for me) or is the offer was really generous as they claimed.

Note: Yes removing Disqus, as this website is open-source, has no ads, not user tracking, no data selling and no revenue, I wouldn't pay $20/month to removed ads.

So I showed them the visit metrics: 230 000 visits in less than the last 3 years, at a rate of about 3000 to 7000 visits a month.

The answer?

To clarify, enabling Disqus ads is not the same as being enrolled in our Revenue Sharing program.

You see the “we tell the world we have generous revenue sharing but in reality nobody is eligible to it so we have a good image but keep all the money” coming?

Also, are they skilled?

Please provide me with the email address and username of associated with your account, so that we may check your eligibility. We found no Disqus accounts under the email redacted@redacted.

I was literally writing to them from the same email address as my account was using, so I even shared a screenshot of my profile.

I sincerely apologize for the mixup - we were able to locate your account/site.

They finally found me, so they were able to give me an answer:

We have reviewed your site and it does not currently qualify as a good fit for the Disqus revenue-sharing program at this time. Try focusing on increasing the engagement on your site, and feel free to reach back out in 6 months for another review.

Nice, so what do you need to be eligible to revenue sharing? 10 millions visits a month? LOL. Nobody knows. They will probably inject ads on hundred of thousands of websites and won't share a penny with them, as the criteria for eligibility are not public, you don't even know what to target.

Intrusive or acceptable ads?#

Look at that:

Disqus massive ads banner

Their ads are abusive and invasive, it does not respect the modern industry standards like https://acceptableads.com/standard/. Let's see if they check the rules:

  1. Distinction: 🟡 it's not tagged as advertisement but as sponsored but at least it's tagged.
  2. Size:
  • đź”´ "If placed lower on the page, ads must not collectively occupy more than 25% of the visible portion of the webpage."
  • đź”´ "Up to 400px high for ads below the Primary Content"

Indeed, the ads on top of the comment section is 700px * 700px which is nearly two times maximum acceptable size for ads below the Primary Content which is already the most favorable scenario. Even if you set your web browser on full-screen and can use 100% of the height of your display, for a 1080px that is more than 64% of the height. But with windows decoration, URL bar, shortcut bar, etc. that will more likely be above 75%. A similarly massive banner is also present below the comment section.

Disqus is neither respecting the readers nor the bloggers with those kinds of ads.

Privacy: let me laugh#

TL;DR: they sold your data and still are, they did so even without your consent, and risk to face justice for that.

Also, not removing your data when you ask them to:

Affiliate links injection:

Security? Not better#

2013 — 29 million online comments leak:

2017 — database containing 17.5 million users' email addresses leak:

Cheaper, better, more ethical alternatives#

Hopefully, there are tons of competitive alternatives nowadays:

Share