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Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#61

Post by jlarocco »

johnward wrote: post #14
jordigh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work hard to block all ads, including those. It's super helpful if you can provide an HTML class to your divs so I can more easily block them, but I will keep on working on blocking all ads by all means possible. I'm thinking of building an ad extension that doesn't show the ads but reports to js that the ad is still there, so that websites think that ad is there. It might also help for some cases to download the a…

Stop browsing ad supported content then. It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved. Everyone says "i'd happily pay" but few put their money where their mouth is. For the HN downvoters why is choosing not to consume the ad supported content so bad?

Why would I do that? Helping people monetize their website isn't my problem.

If ad-blocking eventually forces 95% of "content providers" to shutdown, I don't really care. There's too much blogspam, too many pointless "me too" posts, and just too much crap out there for me to care. If the whole system implodes and goes away it really won't bother me much. The interesting content will be able to survive with subscriptions or pay-per-read or something.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people don't want to admit that most of the web is more a waste of time than anything, and given the option, nobody would pay for most it. Would I pay $x a month to read nautil.us or medium? Yes. Would I subscribe to some idiot who posts his two cents about an article and then links to medium? No.

I buy books and ebooks, pay for music, and pay to watch movies, I don't mind paying for interesting web content. But I'd be stupid to pay for it or not read it when I can easily, legally read it for free.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#62

Post by as1ndu »

The reason is one. And it is because ad blockers actually do not affect both the publishers and ad companies that much. About only less 5% of the internet users world wide have ever employed ad blockers (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/in-bringing-ad-...). I am sure they will move ad serving to the backend when they get better reasons to shun of client side technology. Its just not worth it....yet.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#64

Post by dingaling »

wvenable wrote: post #27
jordigh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work hard to block all ads, including those. It's super helpful if you can provide an HTML class to your divs so I can more easily block them, but I will keep on working on blocking all ads by all means possible. I'm thinking of building an ad extension that doesn't show the ads but reports to js that the ad is still there, so that websites think that ad is there. It might also help for some cases to download the a…

The only reason I know that it blocks these ads is because I also run an ad blocker. We have a very strict ad policy; we manage all our ads internally, don't do any tracking, and all ads are 100% relevant to the content of the site. I have click-through rates on some ads types that are so far above the industry average you'd think I'm lying. We consider our ads just another service we provide on the site one that ben…

> If the scales tip too far, the funds dry up and content will just go away

Or the user-generated content, which fora require to attract new users to keep feeding the content-cycle, will just migrate to other platforms. Nu-Usenet, whatever it might be.

Some forum sites realise this and disable ads for top contributors, to try to keep them in the fold.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#65

Post by blakeyrat »

lolatu54 wrote: post #16

Ads have many specialized requirements that you wouldn't really want to build yourself. Tracking, tokenization of url parameters, rotating ads to meet impression goals, and typically advertisers have build their ads to be served by major ad networks, so you would have to replicate their systems to support those ad units. Ads are way more complicated than most people realize.

It's possible the industry could build some sort of "cross advertiser network API" that would allow proper accounting/selection of ads while remaining on one company's domain (from the perspective of that user's web browser). It would require the cooperation of a lot of parties, many of which (optimizing firms for example) have a vested interest in the way things work now.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#66

Post by x0x0 »

infogulch wrote: post #35
dmritard96 wrote: post #30

Counting Impressions. A different model is needed if the publishers servers have to get the ad first and then give it to the client because the ad server then needs to trust the publisher to report impressions honestly and the publisher has an incentive to inflate that number.

A: Drops 'impressions' as the metric for allocating money for ads. Use something else like clicks which take you to the advertiser's site.

1 - that transfers all risk from the advertiser to the publisher. Did the advertiser's creative not perform? Bad targeting? It's now the pub's problem.

2 - brand advertising isn't really meant to create clicks, but rather a positive impression of a brand. eg those cute cheerios ads or the xmas polar bear coke ads.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#67

Post by johnward »

jlarocco wrote: post #61
johnward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop browsing ad supported content then. It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved. Everyone says "i'd happily pay" but few put their money where their mouth is. For the HN downvoters why is choosing not to consume the ad supported content so bad?

Why would I do that? Helping people monetize their website isn't my problem. If ad-blocking eventually forces 95% of "content providers" to shutdown, I don't really care. There's too much blogspam, too many pointless "me too" posts, and just too much crap out there for me to care. If the whole system implodes and goes away it really won't bother me much. The interesting content will be able to survive with subscripti…

> I think a lot of people don't want to admit that most of the web is more a waste of time than anything, and given the option, nobody would pay for most it.

I kind of agree with this but yet so much content that I think is worthless still gets massive amounts of traffic. Like those stupid viral facebook lists that make you click through 30 pages, quizzes or whatever the linkbait flavor of the week is. Yet so many of my friends must find some value in them or they wouldn't keep sharing them.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#68

Post by zhobbs »

as1ndu wrote: post #62

The reason is one. And it is because ad blockers actually do not affect both the publishers and ad companies that much. About only less 5% of the internet users world wide have ever employed ad blockers ( http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/in-bringing-ad-... ). I am sure they will move ad serving to the backend when they get better reasons to shun of client side technology. Its just not worth it....yet.

This is changing fast depending on the audience for your content. Some publishers are now seeing 40%+ of their traffic ad blocked. Some countries are seeing 30%+ of total population using ad block. Ad block usage is up 41% year over year...this is going to be a very serious issue very soon for many publishers.

Some of my numbers are from: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/study-of-ad-blockin...

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#69

Post by wvenable »

baddox wrote: post #36
wvenable wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I know that it blocks these ads is because I also run an ad blocker. We have a very strict ad policy; we manage all our ads internally, don't do any tracking, and all ads are 100% relevant to the content of the site. I have click-through rates on some ads types that are so far above the industry average you'd think I'm lying. We consider our ads just another service we provide on the site one that ben…

I don't think that's the tragedy of the commons, because there is no "commons." Your website, and your time spent creating content, are not commons in the economic sense. If you want to charge people for your content, it's relatively simple to do so. I don't think you can invoke "tragedy of the commons" when you're choosing to not charge people for your content and then getting upset that some people view your conten…

The commons is the web itself. This is hacker news, we click links on different domains a hundred times every day. Each of those sites could charge you for all their content but then you'd be broke or nobody would make enough money to keep the lights on.

As for the technological means to mitigate that; they aren't at all feasible yet. So the reality is most people support sites by viewing ads and those that don't view ads aren't supporting them at all. Most people, if forced to pay for certain content, just wouldn't bother because it's not worth it for them. I feel like that whenever I hit a paywall limit from a HN link; I enjoy the content but not that much overall.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#70

Post by joosters »

johnward wrote: post #50
joosters wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give some examples of websites where there is some form of ToS that contractually disallows access without viewing the ads? I think you'll find that the overwhelming majority of websites have no such terms of use, so who are you to tell us how we should be accessing these sites?

Is updating the ToS going to actually change anything?

Probably not, as the people who block all ads will likely continue to do so (and who reads ToS anyway?)

But without it, how can you back up any kind of complaint about someone not displaying the ads? There never was any obligation. It's like yelling at someone who leaves their lounge to make a cup of tea during a TV ad break.

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