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Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

theawl.com

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Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#41

Post by mojuba »

gregmac wrote: post #35
mojuba wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that part needs some improvements. I'm thinking, advertisers might compete for viewers by paying more for a given keyword, i.e. the prices are not fixed and the highest bidder wins the viewer. Another question is whether these ads are skippable or not. Can I skip the ad, go straight to the article and not be paid? Maybe content providers could decide.

> Can I skip the ad, go straight to the article and not be paid? Maybe content providers could decide. I think the content providers would argue that you getting the content is your form of 'payment' for seeing the ad. So if you skip it, why should they give you the content anyway?

Some content providers may choose to allow that, because it's in their interest to deliver content to more readers, be more popular. Let's not forget, the whole point of journalism is to reach out to more readers. How the journalist's job is paid exactly is secondary really, as long as it's legal of course.

So let's say 1% of my readers choose to view the ad, get paid for it and get the advertiser pay me too. I might be fine with that. I'll have more readers then who'd spread the word about (and directly link to) my awesome blog/magazine.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#42

Post by cpeterso »

mojuba wrote: post #2

As a possibility, a model whereby advertisers pay both content providers and readers for viewing ads. I can imagine a system where before viewing expensive content (your next ultradeep NYT analysis I really want to read) I'm given a choice to view an ad (video, audio or picture) on one of the topics I'm interested in and be paid say $0.001. There are ad processors, let's say 2 or 3 major ones A, B and C, with whom I…

Ad networks use real-time bidding to auction banner ad space as the page loads. (I imagine that's part of the reason it can take so damn long for some news sites to load.) Why can't the user (or their user agent) take part in this same auction? If I'm will to pay $0.02 per page view on nytimes.com, but advertisers are only willing to pay $0.01 then I should be able to win the auction.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#43

Post by jacquesm »

chc wrote: post #9
mojuba wrote: post #2

As a possibility, a model whereby advertisers pay both content providers and readers for viewing ads. I can imagine a system where before viewing expensive content (your next ultradeep NYT analysis I really want to read) I'm given a choice to view an ad (video, audio or picture) on one of the topics I'm interested in and be paid say $0.001. There are ad processors, let's say 2 or 3 major ones A, B and C, with whom I…

What is the point of a system that pays people less than a cent?

The point is that lots of cents make up a sizeable income. The problem is that processing 'a cent' or a fraction of one costs more than you'll end up getting and nobody - to date - has been able to create a functioning micro payments system with associated wallet to gain sufficient adoption to make it work. It's a combination of a technology problem with a chicken-and-the-egg problem.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#44

Post by gregmac »

mtgentry wrote: post #28
eru wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad blockers could become smarter in return.

I see, so as long as the code can be looked at, it can be circumvented?

In a way.

An extreme could be not loading content until the ad is loaded, and there is some type of check to verify that it did actually load (not blocked).

If someone is determined enough, they could simulate the ad being loaded (eg, maybe it actually IS even loaded, but the DOM element is hidden in one of dozen different ways which the ad-loaded-verification code doesn't check for).

Essentially the problem boils down to running code (HTML, Javascript, CSS, and even Flash) in an untrusted environment (the user's browser). The site sends the user bits of data to be displayed, but there's ultimately no way to know if the user's browser ACTUALLY displays those in the browser window, let alone to the user's eyeballs.

As a content provider, you can get very, very clever, but you can never get to 100%, and there will always be a motivated user to work on an adblocker that circumvents everything.

It's really not any different from DRM (as someone else in thread pointed out). The movie/music/TV/games industry has spent billions of dollars coming up with various schemes of DRM, yet you can still download basically anything (stripped of its DRM, of course) within days of release, if not earlier.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#46

Post by jgianakopoulos »

buffoon wrote: post #37

I love the mantra of "the web is supported by advertising" that every one of these sorts of articles at least quotes. It's not. Shitty business models are supported by advertising. There are plenty of us who provide non-advertising driven services that are profitable and can afford transit costs. As for blocking, the technology allows it so I will use it. If it doesn't allow it, I have no ethical qualms about breakin…

The mantra? This is how the majority of the web is monetized. It's not a mantra, it's a fact. People contribute content to the web and you pay with viewing ads. I don't know how you can rationalize that as being a "shitty" business model just because you purchase a device that is capable of connecting to the internet.

If what you really mean to say is that it's a bad business model because people like yourself can install ad-blocking software and consume content without paying for it, then I see what you're saying although you come off as entitled and naive.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#47

Post by 001sky »

wmt wrote: post #19

Damn, that article took a strange leap with discussing what better ads would be. Somehow it entirely skipped the possibility that more ads might resemble the ads of the most successful advertisers of the web (like google, facebook, twitter) and instead leaped on a dystopian slope where all ads are served by the content platforms of those companies. Saying that twitter, google or facebook ads cannot be blocked is just…

Such better ads are not patented, and switching to pleasant text ads like the industry leaders leaders did would make ad blockers a marginal phenomenon.

The risk is that advertising would also become a marginal phenomenon.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#48

Post by einrealist »

_delirium wrote: post #30
Jerry2 wrote: post #14

About a year or so ago, my dad called me out of the blue and told me that my mom was crying because "internet ads were following her and making her anxious". Earlier that day, she came from a doctor and ended up searching for a medical condition on a famous search website. After that, she started seeing ads for various bullshit remedies all across the internet. Almost every website she visited, showed her same types…

That's called "retargeting" [1]. In some cases it feels harmless, in others it feels very creepy. I tend to use incognito windows when I search for things I don't want following me around everywhere, to avoid them getting stuck into tracking cookies. But I assume most people don't, so it causes them trouble. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting

I am constantly affected with this on mobile devices (no ad blocker). It is so intrusive. But its laughable at the same time, because those ad serving engines try to predict me, but show me utter bullshit ads for things I accidently viewed before.

So, I really look forward to iOS 9. And whoever provides a proper blocking app will get my money!

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#50

Post by greggman »

Jerry2 wrote: post #14

About a year or so ago, my dad called me out of the blue and told me that my mom was crying because "internet ads were following her and making her anxious". Earlier that day, she came from a doctor and ended up searching for a medical condition on a famous search website. After that, she started seeing ads for various bullshit remedies all across the internet. Almost every website she visited, showed her same types…

Ever click the little X or > in the corner of an add? Google has a bunch of settings you can set.

As for creepy ads following you around though I haven't personally found that to be a google thing.

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