Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 86 posts

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

#71

Post by ahp »

ConSeannery wrote: post #51

Here's how a typical banner/adspace currently works: 1. The ad/banner space downloads a javascript file 2. Javascript runs, collects browser+cookie+other identifying information and sends it on up to an ad exchange 3. The ad-exchange systems cross-reference the information it receives with other information it already has (think huge low latency k/v store) in order to try to identify you further, perform cross-device…

> 6. Ad-exchange receives all the bids and picks the second highest bidder (no idea why it's the second highest)

It's called a Vickrey Auction. It allows bidders to bid their true value (instead of trying to outbid all of the other bidders, as is what results from a first-price auction).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction

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

#72

Post by baddox »

johnward wrote: post #48
baddox wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does choosing to not consume ad-supported content help the situation? There is no difference between not viewing an ad-supported web page, and viewing it with an adblocker, apart from the extremely small cost of serving the page. And if the cost of serving the page to adblocking visitors is too high, then that's an extremely obvious flaw in the web site's business model, and is in no way the fault of the adblocki…

Hosting is basically a commodity now but there is still cost involved. Especially if you are actually producing unique content. If I choose to steal a physical product is that an "obvious flaw in the business model" too? Look, I'm not arguing that advertising is the only way to make money. In fact I think it's ultimately going to die or come to some form users and content producers can agree on. Especially with compa…

> If I choose to steal a physical product is that an "obvious flaw in the business model" too?

If you give away a physical product, with an implicit expectation that each recipient will take part in some other interaction that will give you a small amount of money, then that is an obvious flaw in the business model.

If you want to apply your analogy of theft, then you need to discuss password-protected web content where people pay for subscriptions. In that case, if someone hacks your site or steals another subscriber's password, then your analogy would hold.

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

#73

Post by WorldWideWayne »

johnward wrote: post #60
WorldWideWayne wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites could easily refuse to serve content to people who run adblockers or who turn off Javascript. Instead, by serving their content upon request, the sites are implicitly agreeing to my terms. So, I'm not doing anything wrong by running an ad-blocker on my computer. I think it would be great if someone codified this too. If servers can have Terms of Service, so can users. Wouldn't it be great if my browser could se…

Actually, ad blockers work hard to make sure this can't happen. I'd like for a site to be able to identify those users and decide not to serve content but there is a reason why adblockers don't want this. If I can identify that you are running an adblocker then I could do something even more malicious than serving an ad. There is no way to identify an ad blocker in the initial request. If there was the adblocker woul…

Actually, there are sites that already can and do detect adblock so however hard the adblockers are working to stop this, it's not working. Getting hung up on the fact that you can't do it in the initial request is introducing a strawman.

> If I can identify that you are running an adblocker then I could do something even more malicious than serving an ad.

Well, then you'd be an asshole. Running an adblocker on my computer is not malicious, so some site responding with a possibly illegal action wouldn't be a good solution for anyone.

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

#74

Post by johnward »

joosters wrote: post #70
johnward wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess it's similar to walking away from the TV. However, DVR providers attempted to use technology to automatically skip ads and there was a huge backlash. The advertisers seem to have won the battle with TV even though you can still fast forward on DVR. Sometimes on-demand doesn't allow it. I still think users are going to win the battle on the web.

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

#75

Post by freehunter »

johnward wrote: post #26
freehunter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "stop downloading F2P games" or "don't support the RIAA/MPAA". There are really just so few sites that aren't ad supported. "It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved." It's literally none of those things. It's not simple, it's not a solution, and it doesn't work for anyone involved.

Leaching content is not much different than the early days of MP3s. So I'm hopeful we'll find a new business model that works without me having to pay for every site on the web I want to browse. I can't remember the last time I pirated an album. The ease of streaming services has made it so convenient that I don't want to manage local files. Still I don't buy the argument that just because you don't want to pay for t…

We're not talking about dodging a toll booth or throwing a hat over the security alarms while walking out of a store. I ate a sample at Costco without buying the product. I got a spray of cologne at Macy's without asking what brand it was. I went to 7/11 on "free slurpee day" and got my free slurpee and nothing else. I'm an extreme couponer who walked out the door owing nothing.

I'm not taking anything from you because you gave it to me for free. Pirating is one thing. You're getting something for free that the distributor expects you to pay for. You're going out of your way to get something for free that you know you have to pay for. My ad blocker doesn't get me into Netflix for free, nor does it get past the NYT's paywall. It doesn't do anything fundamentally different from hitting "Reading Mode" built into my iPhone. Hell, it doesn't do anything fundamentally different from the Chrome extension "Cloud to Butt". It doesn't get me for-pay content for free. It couldn't possibly be any further from pirating MP3s.

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

#77

Post by jlarocco »

johnward wrote: post #67
jlarocco wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But, like I said, most people wouldn't pay for any of those things. They're "valuable" in that they're amusing and silly and free. Charge anything for them, and they would practically disappear overnight. Even people who don't explicitly block the ads are used to ignoring them at this point.

I'd like to see the overlap between people who click through web ads with people who respond to or click through spam email.

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

#78

Post by thomblake »

ConSeannery wrote: post #51

Here's how a typical banner/adspace currently works: 1. The ad/banner space downloads a javascript file 2. Javascript runs, collects browser+cookie+other identifying information and sends it on up to an ad exchange 3. The ad-exchange systems cross-reference the information it receives with other information it already has (think huge low latency k/v store) in order to try to identify you further, perform cross-device…

>6. Ad-exchange receives all the bids and picks the second highest bidder (no idea why it's the second highest) >7. Ad-exchange then sends this second highest bidder's ad URL back to the waiting javascript running in the users browser, and ad-exchange marks the winning bid so it knows who won/who has to pay at the end of the month.

It's a second-price auction - the highest bidder is picked, but the second-highest price is paid (more or less). The URL thus is from the highest bidder, not the second highest bidder.

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

#79

Post by NeutronBoy »

wvenable wrote: post #69
baddox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vie…

> 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.

Indeed, there are discussions on HN that argue that it should explicitly ban paywall articles from being submitted.

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

#80

Post by xbmcuser »

jordigh wrote: post #8
wvenable wrote: post #3

We do that but Ad-blockers block even those ads. We have our own text-based adds like Google Adsense text ads which are just tags and those get filtered out as well.

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…

  Ads subsidise the internet for the people that cant afford it. Subscription models will kill off the web/internet as we have it. I don't care for ads either specially those that hamper with the viewing of the content. If you dont want to see ads just visit the sites.
Post reply on HN