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

Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

theawl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 101 posts

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

#81

Post by buffoon »

sangnoir wrote: post #76
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…

> Shitty business models are supported by advertising. Just because you do not like it doesn't make it a shitty business model: most sports are supported by advertising (e.g. NFL, UEFA). Endorsement deals, sponsoring teams/stadia/leagues and TV rights are just various forms of advertising. TV shows are also funded by advertising, as is most journalism that is not state-funded (a.ka. propaganda).

TV doesn't have ad blockers though.

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

#82

Post by bambax »

Scarblac wrote: post #78
bambax wrote: post #65

> In other words, even the most important and widely respected newspaper in the world is nowhere close to being healthily monetized, especially not by the small number of people who pay for it. It's not true that people won't pay for "content". People subscribe to Netflix, and still go to the theaters in droves (despite "piracy"). People buy games. And it's not even true that there's a problem with written content: p…

There are good arguments for the view that news is actively bad for you: http://dobelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Par... (pdf).

Great read, thanks! I agree with everything in this paper (but that may be confirmation bias at work...)

So adblocking is actually going to save the world by starving all the evil news-producing entities.

However, the fact that most people won't pay for news, signals that news is less addictive than one could think (since people do pay for drugs - they're willing to pay any price for a fix).

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

#83

Post by sigma2015 »

There are so many premises wrong here - it hurts:

1. The majority of people in fact doesn't care about being tracked - "hackers" (and also myself) do care though - but that's a minority.

2. Most people like good advertisement.

3. It's wrong to just naturally assume that ads have to be annoying. A discreet, not-moving, not-animated ad is not bothering anybody.

4. Just as most people aren't willing to pay for content they aren't willing to pay for the maintenance of ad blockers - which is why the devs of those ABs will (and as a matter of fact) already offer whitelisting for money. [http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/over-300-businesses-...]

5. More and more web-sites will simply deny access to their content if ad blocking is detected.

6. The HN people's perspective on ads is in each and every way not that of the majority of people potentially clicking ads. We are not the driving force.

---

The equilibrium will be Ad Blockers that white list benevolent and discreet ads - advertisement as an income source will become less attractive but it won't go away.

Also Ad Blocking depends on detectable code or ad servers. If the ad dissemination technology shifts accordingly then Ad Blockers simply won't be able to detect ads any longer.

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

#84

Post by jay_kyburz »

sangnoir wrote: post #77
jay_kyburz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with Buffoon on this one. Trying to convince somebody they want to buy something by bombarding them with ads on every web page is shitty. I don't want to be exposed to it. I don't want my kids exposed to it. Then to build your content business on top of the shitty advertising industry that seems kind of a bad idea. I think if people want your content they will pay. Publishers just need to bundle it the right way.…

> I think if people want your content they will pay. Publishers just need to bundle it the right way. This is incredibly difficult to do and all the attempts I am aware of have 'failed' by varying degrees (paywalls, app.net). If ad-blocking becomes a trend, I hope the websites as the blockers to pay instead of resorting to "native ads" or going out of business. Hopefully, the internet won't be stratified (rich vs. po…

So Paywalls and app.net failed. I can think of heaps of better ideas for packaging news and other content.

I would like to see some of the lessons we have learnt about Freemium applied to news.

First you have a base level of great content available for free for everybody. You build a very large user base. Then for those people who want to dig deeper, you have premium content. Those users who really value your service won't mind spending a little money to engage more. Those who engage a lot - pay a lot, but it's their hobby, their past time. they don't mind.

It sound horrible when you spell it out explicitly, but like everything you need present well.

10c to read an article 1 hour earlier than everybody else. 10c to comment on an article. 5c to read the full transcripts of interviews. 10c to download full res photos. 5c to read full bio's of the people involved in the article.

You could spend $20 a day interacting / socialising / enjoying your news and entertainment.

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

#85

Post by dingaling »

Animats wrote: post #16
venomsnake wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we slide into closed and centralized places ... that is scary.

Every business will still have a web site for their own products and services. Amazon won't have a problem. Wikipedia will go on. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist are already pay sites, and they're almost the only news sites with actual reporters. Pay TV will continue to fund news networks, which will have sites with additional content to get people to watch their TV. All we'll lose are the…

> and The Economist are already pay sites, and they're almost the only news sites with actual reporters.

The Economist doesn't actually have on-staff reporters, they rely on correspondents around the World who sell their articles either ad hoc or on a commission basis.

They do have staff who write editorials, but not the news articles.

The Economist is also happy to ( try to ) utterly bombard me with ads on their website despite being a subscriber. They even had a crawl-up SUBSCRIBE NOW! ad at one point when I was logged-in.

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

#86

Post by a3n »

bwohlergo wrote: post #80
einrealist wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

ads are the only reason i use firefox on my phone. its the only mobile browser with extension support thogh thats the only good thing about it... i'd much rather use opera or chrome, as both are better in almost every way

I recently switched from FF to Chrome on Android, because on Android Chrome gives me a better experience (mainly text resizing).

But this morning I was searching for adblockers on FF android, because ads.

I don't web much on my phone, but the extensions are bookmarked in my head, and probably the weekend I'm going to setup my FF with uBlockOrigin and Ghostery at least.

It'd be nice if I could run a web proxy on my phone that blocked ads regardless of browser or app.

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

#87

Post by a3n »

I'm mainly talking about news outlets, and mainly the premiers like NYT and major regionals.

Those outlets claim, probably rightly so, that they can't survive on subscriptions alone, they need ads. But on the web, what that means is "we can't survive unless we degrade your web experience and violate your privacy by selling you to ad networks."

We're all focused on the ad side, and "how can we make money selling exactly what we've always sold without ads."

Maybe selling news is not a viable business on the web. Ad blockers are not just evidence that we don't like ads as they are now, but also evidence that "we don't want to pay for what you're selling us. What you're selling us isn't worth it."

Maybe a premier outlet like the NYT should be more than a news outlet. Maybe also an education outlet. NYT especially (and other premiers) already have people who do excellent research, writing, presentation, web development and data analysis. They have all the tools for education, they just aren't deploying them that way.

In classrooms, teachers sometimes try to incorporate current events into lessons. Turn that on its head.

But don't fall into the trap of replicating "the classroom," or courses, online. This would need some pretty serious innovation.

Would I subscribe to something like that? Hell yeah. I'd even accept ads, but not active privacy gouging ads, just static text and images served from the first party domain. Don't do something new, only to fuck it up with old.

Premier news outlets could be so much more that just another trap for ad viewing. They have really smart people, trapped in their employers' outdated business models.

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

#88

Post by a3n »

001sky wrote: post #47
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.

It's amazing to me that so many smart minds in content outlets can't figure out a way to make money other than ads, particular privacy invading ads.

It's been said often enough and long enough to sound tired, but we really are products, not customers. The entity that a content outlet cares about is the ad networks. NOT you. The content is just a bug zapper meant to attract you in.

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

#89

Post by a3n »

Is there a way that I, as a consumer, could sell ads to ad networks that would be "viewed" (i.e. consume resources) by content outlets? Maybe they could be so resource intensive that admins would feel compelled to review logs, and the log content would somehow have enough information that an admin would buy a shoe.

Maybe http headers sent to content outlets could have ads.

Maybe something magic and really creative, I don't know.

You could even customize part of the message. One part from the advertiser, and one part from me, "Please do me a solid and stop blocking my ads to you. I need the ad revenue to help pay for my broadband fees."

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

#90

Post by a3n »

a3n wrote: post #89

Is there a way that I, as a consumer, could sell ads to ad networks that would be "viewed" (i.e. consume resources) by content outlets? Maybe they could be so resource intensive that admins would feel compelled to review logs, and the log content would somehow have enough information that an admin would buy a shoe. Maybe http headers sent to content outlets could have ads. Maybe something magic and really creative, I…

Maybe just make it a habit to send email to every human address I can find at a site, and load the message up with ads. Although the ads might not be seen, if people at the content site themselves are using adblockers.
Post reply on HN