The end of an era: MacSurfer shuts down

MacSurfer has shut down. We first started visiting MacSurfer in the late 1990s – yes, the last century! – right around the time we first registered the MacDailyNews.com domain. Back then, we were working for others and it took us a full four years to get around to actually launching the site back in 2002. (Fun fact: We actually designed our logo while attending Macworld Expo 1999 in New York City).

Anyway, since then, we’ve been visiting MacSurfer multiple times per day, every day, for well over 20 years, so the news that the site has shut down “effective immediately” comes as a shock. This phrase is often overused, but this truly is “the end of an era.”

MacDailyNews Note: For those looking for a MacSurfer replacement, try MacHash.com.

Jonny Evans for Apple Must:

Website publisher, Phil Pearson, was heading into retirement and had hoped to turn his site into a subscription-based service, but this didn’t work out. Readers who had chosen to subscribe will be receiving rebates over the next few days, the company said…

Most readers are aware that the economics of online publishing are broken, particularly for niche players.

Search/ad firms, meanwhile, have historically impacted business with a few algorithm changes — and don’t seem to have any responsibility when they do so.

These economic challenges combine with reader expectations.

Readers expect information to be free, but still demand quality. This has inevitably led to a reduction in quality, as publishers slash investigative budgets and short statements on Twitter become news. Few reporters today really have the resources they need to write the great stories.

We all lose as a result.

MacDailyNews Take: We still can’t believe that MacSurfer has shut down.

R.I.P., MacSurfer. Job well done! Good luck to the MacSurfer crew in your future endeavors!

MacDailyNews Note: Consider this a soft launch, we’ll put up an article about it soon, but at the request of longtime readers who prefer to use ad-blockers, but who would also like to be able support the site’s continued operation, we do have a working “Contribute” page, it’s just not in the site’s menus yet. This seems like an appropriate time to mention its existence.

We know many of you have been asking for this for some time, so the contribute page is here for those who block ads, but who’d like to support the site’s operation. We’re hoping some “Apple money” comes in from the Cupertino area! 😁 🙏🏻

BONUS: Whenever contributions match the revenue of a particular ad, that ad space will be retired. The ultimate goal would be to end up with no ads, but, realistically, we hope to someday get to just one or two ads per page, which we think ought to be an acceptable outcome for everyone. In a good faith gesture, we’ve already removed those pesky edge ads that a recent poll identified should be the first to go. We hope you’ll contribute to make up for that loss of revenue. If you can whitelist us in your ad-blockers, we appreciate it!

As evidenced by MacSurfer.com and MacNN.com before them, these are obviously trying times for independent tech blogs such as ours. We don’t require much, but we do have fixed costs that have to be met in order to operate the site, so thank you in advance for your support and, as always, for visiting MacDailyNews!