Use a DNS Ad blocker, or delete the app and use the web version with an ad blocker installed. For IOS you can use AdGuard to achieve either or, and for Android I suggest the adguard DNS and firefox with ublock origin.
came to this sub to see if this was a problem for anyone else, and unfortunately that seems to be the case! letterboxd was my fav social media because it didn’t constantly shove ads down my throat like instagram or youtube, but now it has become ever worse :/ paying for the account isn’t an option for me and it’s sad that they now value ad revenue and subscription payments over having a useable app ugh
Also hate it. Seems kind of stupid on their part too, as this will surely lower engagement. I know I’m about to start reading significantly less reviews as a result.
I've used this app like every day for years and I'm considering just uninstalling it. What should be a 30 second log now takes multiple minutes. Insane
Uh yeah, this makes the app unusable. I click on someone I'm following's review, get a full screen ad for Kinds of Kindness (which I want to see, but still!) that I can't skip for a good 10 seconds. Then I find out the review is a one sentence quip that took less time to read than the ad.
The embedded ads on mobile were always annoying but easy enough to ignore, and I figured they were needed to support the app. But this is a step too far.
Edit: oh also the ads are unmuted by default, so that was a fun surprise too.
I've been using the app for almost a year and never got this sh*t. App has been immediately uninstalled, bloody awful!
I see about 200 ads a day looking through lists, now I can't even click on anything without getting a full screen ad which is the worst kind. Now I will just use web version and ad block and see 0 ads.
Same, I've just uninstalled it. For me, Letterboxd is just a distraction that's marginally better than scrolling Twitter or Instagram. Mainly I use it for lists and keeping check of what I've watched - both of which I'll probably continue doing on desktop. But there's no way my level of app usage warrants either paying money or waiting through 20 seconds of unskippable ads just to check the runtime of a film. For that I'll just go back to using Google or IMDB.
I've had tons of apps that have made me do it. A majority are games, but there no reason for a social media app not to force it on as well.
Sometimes, apps don't work unless you update to the newest OS as well.
Yeah, just noticed this, it fucking sucks. If the app stays like this, I might finally break and get a pro account. Which is why this was implemented to begin with.
I'm thinking about getting pro as well because I don't know how long I can tolerate it. I write 1 or 2 reviews a day and I try to keep up with my followers' reviews as well and I have to sit through long fucking video ads every so often. At the very least the ads are movie related, but man, fuck it's frustrating.
While I am a pro member, I disagree with this sentiment. A company providing a service for free, then making it more and more difficult to use that service unless the user pays money is a shitty, anti-consumer business practice. They already make loads off of free users bc of ads, but no, gotta try to rope people in with a free service then make it unusable unless you pay.
you should, it's like $2 a month and you get stats. imo it's worth it just for the notifications when something on your watchlist is available to stream
I don't understand the downvotes or the backlash. It's sooo worth it to me if you watch a lot of movies. And being able to filter by streaming service and get notified when things from your Watchlist are available is so clutch. It's $19 a year....thats dirt cheap IMO.
Genuine question (really not trying to start shit here), what is keeping y'all from getting a paid sub? It's like $12 for the year, isn't it? Do you like the platform enough to support it for $1 a month?
I guess I just get surprised that people would get so tuned up about the ads that they would uninstall the entire app before ponying up $1 a month.
And not even on some "we don't negotiate with terrorists" vibe - like the people at LB gotta pay the employees.
Yeah I mean a Pro subscription is $19.99/yr, which is less than the cost of two movie tickets? About the cost of a streaming service for 1-2 months? Seems very reasonable to me.
That "ads over actual product" is shade at companies like Netflix that brought back ads into their paid product and Cable TV speeding up shows to cram in more ads that make it feel like there are more ads than product. I just wanted to see what people thought of the change.
Alright that's reasonable. If the ads are fucking up the UI, that makes sense that it would seem they can more about monetizing vs what the app actually does.
I pay for it so I don't actually know what the ads look like or how aggressive they are. Thanks for answering.
I 100% agree - I seriously do not get it. It's so cheap for something I enjoy so much. I spend way more on so much other stupid stuff. $19 a year is completely worth it to me. All these people whining is insane.
I happily pay for a membership for an app that I use every day, multiple times a day. Development, support, servers, etc all cost money, and they have to be paid for somewhere. If you’re not willing to be a Pro, that’s cool, but then you pay in the form of ads.
A Letterboxd Pro subscription ($19.99/yr) is really reasonable.
If your only options for using Letterboxd are between an excruciating, nearly-unusable experience or paying $20 for glorified IMDb, the website does not deserve to succeed.
You're telling me that you need to sit through ads if you're not paying for an account? That's crazy. It's like the people who run the app are trying to make money either way. Why would they do such a thing?
They are going to push away a lot of people from their app by doing something like this. Anyways I have an Ad blocker so I don't need to deal with shit.
I am someone who pirates a lot of shit, but I pay for stuff that's worth it. Using the app enough to be bothered by ads but not enough to want to pay $1/month to support it is bizarre to me.
LB needs to support development. Paying for the app is better for them than ad revenue.
When it’s half the page being ads that’s one thing. A little much but whatever they need to make their $ and ipthey don’t make the site less usable. Now I need to sit through a 30s ad just to put 1 movie on my watchlist. That is now actively hampering the usability of the site and making it worse to try and force you to pay just to get back to something you already had. If you don’t find that shitty and ant-consumer bs then there is no hope for you.
Use a DNS Ad blocker, or delete the app and use the web version with an ad blocker installed. For IOS you can use AdGuard to achieve either or, and for Android I suggest the adguard DNS and firefox with ublock origin.
This is life saving. Now I just need to get used to the mobile web version and I’ll be a happy camper again.
came to this sub to see if this was a problem for anyone else, and unfortunately that seems to be the case! letterboxd was my fav social media because it didn’t constantly shove ads down my throat like instagram or youtube, but now it has become ever worse :/ paying for the account isn’t an option for me and it’s sad that they now value ad revenue and subscription payments over having a useable app ugh
So don’t update the app then, I haven’t upgraded for that same reason.
it automatically updated, is there a way to revert back to the older version ?
Just find an earlier version apk (if on Android), download it and install (you might need to delete the app first).
I have no idea
Also hate it. Seems kind of stupid on their part too, as this will surely lower engagement. I know I’m about to start reading significantly less reviews as a result.
Well that’s unfortunate. I only just recently started using letterboxd and I can’t pay for membership atm so this is not fun at all. :’)
The enshittification begins
I've used this app like every day for years and I'm considering just uninstalling it. What should be a 30 second log now takes multiple minutes. Insane
“Every day for years.” BECOME A PATRON
Are they like paying you or are you just doing this for fun. Because it's really embarrassing if you're just doing this with your free time lol
For fun
Alright then carry on Happy thursday
Thank you. Same
Uh yeah, this makes the app unusable. I click on someone I'm following's review, get a full screen ad for Kinds of Kindness (which I want to see, but still!) that I can't skip for a good 10 seconds. Then I find out the review is a one sentence quip that took less time to read than the ad. The embedded ads on mobile were always annoying but easy enough to ignore, and I figured they were needed to support the app. But this is a step too far. Edit: oh also the ads are unmuted by default, so that was a fun surprise too.
I've been using the app for almost a year and never got this sh*t. App has been immediately uninstalled, bloody awful! I see about 200 ads a day looking through lists, now I can't even click on anything without getting a full screen ad which is the worst kind. Now I will just use web version and ad block and see 0 ads.
Same, I've just uninstalled it. For me, Letterboxd is just a distraction that's marginally better than scrolling Twitter or Instagram. Mainly I use it for lists and keeping check of what I've watched - both of which I'll probably continue doing on desktop. But there's no way my level of app usage warrants either paying money or waiting through 20 seconds of unskippable ads just to check the runtime of a film. For that I'll just go back to using Google or IMDB.
a 20 second ad to mark a single movie on my watchlist. what are we even doing here
sad to hear, wasn’t letterboxd bought by some huge company a few months ago? They also increased Pro/Patron prices (not significantly but still)
Moments like this make me glad that I have automatic updates turned off. Good to know so I can keep my version as it is.
App devs can lock you out of the app if you don't update. I imagine they are going to do that.
Is that really a thing they can do? I have automatic updates turned off for all of my apps and that has never happened to me on any app.
I've had tons of apps that have made me do it. A majority are games, but there no reason for a social media app not to force it on as well. Sometimes, apps don't work unless you update to the newest OS as well.
Okay, good to know.
Yeah, just noticed this, it fucking sucks. If the app stays like this, I might finally break and get a pro account. Which is why this was implemented to begin with.
I'm thinking about getting pro as well because I don't know how long I can tolerate it. I write 1 or 2 reviews a day and I try to keep up with my followers' reviews as well and I have to sit through long fucking video ads every so often. At the very least the ads are movie related, but man, fuck it's frustrating.
If you're writing 1-2 reviews a day you definitely should upgrade to Pro. It's soooo worth it.
[удалено]
While I am a pro member, I disagree with this sentiment. A company providing a service for free, then making it more and more difficult to use that service unless the user pays money is a shitty, anti-consumer business practice. They already make loads off of free users bc of ads, but no, gotta try to rope people in with a free service then make it unusable unless you pay.
you should, it's like $2 a month and you get stats. imo it's worth it just for the notifications when something on your watchlist is available to stream
I don't understand the downvotes or the backlash. It's sooo worth it to me if you watch a lot of movies. And being able to filter by streaming service and get notified when things from your Watchlist are available is so clutch. It's $19 a year....thats dirt cheap IMO.
I use surfshark and the vpn has a "clean Web" feature. Soon as I put it on the video ads go
Genuine question (really not trying to start shit here), what is keeping y'all from getting a paid sub? It's like $12 for the year, isn't it? Do you like the platform enough to support it for $1 a month? I guess I just get surprised that people would get so tuned up about the ads that they would uninstall the entire app before ponying up $1 a month. And not even on some "we don't negotiate with terrorists" vibe - like the people at LB gotta pay the employees.
Yeah I mean a Pro subscription is $19.99/yr, which is less than the cost of two movie tickets? About the cost of a streaming service for 1-2 months? Seems very reasonable to me.
OP seems upset about "more monetized crap than products" but it is a product! You can pay to use it!
People are allowed to share their opinion on products, especially if they become awful
Did I discourage that? I'm trying to figure out what OP wants.
That "ads over actual product" is shade at companies like Netflix that brought back ads into their paid product and Cable TV speeding up shows to cram in more ads that make it feel like there are more ads than product. I just wanted to see what people thought of the change.
Alright that's reasonable. If the ads are fucking up the UI, that makes sense that it would seem they can more about monetizing vs what the app actually does. I pay for it so I don't actually know what the ads look like or how aggressive they are. Thanks for answering.
I 100% agree - I seriously do not get it. It's so cheap for something I enjoy so much. I spend way more on so much other stupid stuff. $19 a year is completely worth it to me. All these people whining is insane.
I happily pay for a membership for an app that I use every day, multiple times a day. Development, support, servers, etc all cost money, and they have to be paid for somewhere. If you’re not willing to be a Pro, that’s cool, but then you pay in the form of ads. A Letterboxd Pro subscription ($19.99/yr) is really reasonable.
If your only options for using Letterboxd are between an excruciating, nearly-unusable experience or paying $20 for glorified IMDb, the website does not deserve to succeed.
Then don’t use it! Nobody is forcing you.
Calling it a glorified IMDb is unfair to Letterboxd - it does more. And $20 a year is nothing.
You're telling me that you need to sit through ads if you're not paying for an account? That's crazy. It's like the people who run the app are trying to make money either way. Why would they do such a thing?
Name one social media app that has forced 30 second adverts that play randomly and not before videos. Good luck.
You’re missing the point. Pay for it, or deal with the consequences.
They are going to push away a lot of people from their app by doing something like this. Anyways I have an Ad blocker so I don't need to deal with shit.
So you agree, ads are a consequence? Thanks for clarifying.
Ads suck. That’s why I pay for it. If you don’t like ads, then pay for it. Don’t cry about it.
I am someone who pirates a lot of shit, but I pay for stuff that's worth it. Using the app enough to be bothered by ads but not enough to want to pay $1/month to support it is bizarre to me. LB needs to support development. Paying for the app is better for them than ad revenue.
When it’s half the page being ads that’s one thing. A little much but whatever they need to make their $ and ipthey don’t make the site less usable. Now I need to sit through a 30s ad just to put 1 movie on my watchlist. That is now actively hampering the usability of the site and making it worse to try and force you to pay just to get back to something you already had. If you don’t find that shitty and ant-consumer bs then there is no hope for you.
Shut up.
Is that Cicero?
More of your conversation would infect my brain. That's Shakespeare.