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Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

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

#91

Post by jgianakopoulos »

buffoon wrote: post #59
jgianakopoulos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

Thats really not how it works. Content providers like that ideal but it's incorrect. It never has operated that way. I pay for a connection and a device. I don't pay for an advertising subsidy. If you choose to use advertising as a capital model for your business in a market so easily destroyed by technology then that by definition is a shitty business model due to the massive risk of a technological shift destroying…

If ad blocking keeps growing at the rate it has been, then you're correct and the web will shrink. Maybe people will pay for services or news, and maybe they won't. I do agree that some ads are intrusive and annoying, but the model of publishers using advertising as a revenue source isn't going away any time soon.

What I think is disappointing is that the quantity and quality of original content would suffer without advertising-based business models. Individual bloggers, niche news outlets, and other small publishers will be unable to monetize their content. Even the New York Times (one of the most respected and largest news outlets in the entire world) can barely get over 800,000 paying online subscribers, and that includes subscriptions for a slimmed-down NYT Now app.

If you want a web that is rich in information, then advertising is a devil you have to accept.

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

#92

Post by tertius »

a3n wrote: post #88
001sky wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"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"

There are many ways, but nothing that is as profitable.

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

#93

Post by jgianakopoulos »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #84
sangnoir wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm fairly certain this has all been tried. The New York Times and many other news outlets do have a freemium model of sorts. You are allowed access to 10 news articles a month, and after you reach your limit you can pay for more.

Guess how many people subscribe to the Times and are willing to actually pay to read another article? If we're talking online news content, there's just a ton of different outlets and I don't see people being willing to pay individually on an article-by-article basis. Maybe if you aggregated content under one subscription model (like the music industry does wit Spotify, Apple Music, etc.) and distributed revenue to publishers based on readership, it could work for a small minority of consumers. But even that seems like a stretch.

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

#94

Post by tertius »

buffoon wrote: post #59
jgianakopoulos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

Thats really not how it works. Content providers like that ideal but it's incorrect. It never has operated that way. I pay for a connection and a device. I don't pay for an advertising subsidy. If you choose to use advertising as a capital model for your business in a market so easily destroyed by technology then that by definition is a shitty business model due to the massive risk of a technological shift destroying…

So what you're suggesting is one of two things.

1. Support model. I.e. I donate to your site and then consume your content. 2. Netflix (walled garden) model: I pay a central place, think AOL, or Facebook and they track my views and pay those producing content.

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

#95

Post by tertius »

buffoon wrote: post #81
sangnoir wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Tivo?

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

#96

Post by buffoon »

tertius wrote: post #94
buffoon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats really not how it works. Content providers like that ideal but it's incorrect. It never has operated that way. I pay for a connection and a device. I don't pay for an advertising subsidy. If you choose to use advertising as a capital model for your business in a market so easily destroyed by technology then that by definition is a shitty business model due to the massive risk of a technological shift destroying…

So what you're suggesting is one of two things. 1. Support model. I.e. I donate to your site and then consume your content. 2. Netflix (walled garden) model: I pay a central place, think AOL, or Facebook and they track my views and pay those producing content.

I'm not really suggesting, just acknowledging the inevitability of.

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

#97

Post by jay_kyburz »

jgianakopoulos wrote: post #93
jay_kyburz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm fairly certain this has all been tried. The New York Times and many other news outlets do have a freemium model of sorts. You are allowed access to 10 news articles a month, and after you reach your limit you can pay for more. Guess how many people subscribe to the Times and are willing to actually pay to read another article? If we're talking online news content, there's just a ton of different outlets and I don…

Ok, I just went and had a look at the Times website you minimum subscription is around $80USD a year but you can up to around 500USD a year. Lets round 800,000 at 100US a year is 80MM right?

Thats a shit tone of journalists employed if you ask me.

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

#98

Post by mahranch »

mintplant wrote: post #32
mahranch wrote: post #31

The author gets one thing massively wrong. So do the reddit commentors they quote. The quote: " Ad blockers could end up saving the ad industry from its worst excesses. If blocking becomes widespread, the ad industry will be pushed to produce ads that are simpler, less invasive and far more transparent about the way they’re handling our data " Oh? And how are you so sure they won't go the other direction? Because tha…

If the ads are instead served up locally, from the site the person is visiting itself, it can't block the ads. Why not? I don't see why an ad blocker couldn't identify and block certain URL schemes/patterns, common scripts, or element structures. Also -- doesn't cross-site tracking rely on third-party cookies from a shared (separate) domain?

> Why not?

I think you missed the point, the plugin or program wouldn't have a distinct pattern or scheme since it would be coming from the website you're visiting.

Say, for example, I want to show an ad for denture cream. Nothing fancy, just a gif. Well, the URL would look like http://www.randomsite.com/img/filename.gif

How do you block that without blocking every image on the website?

Granted, what you propose would be easier to do for more advanced systems, but the key here, is that 95% of adblockers almost exclusively look for calls to ad networks. If you eliminate that, you open up that 95%.

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

#99

Post by mahranch »

MichaelGG wrote: post #34
mahranch wrote: post #31

The author gets one thing massively wrong. So do the reddit commentors they quote. The quote: " Ad blockers could end up saving the ad industry from its worst excesses. If blocking becomes widespread, the ad industry will be pushed to produce ads that are simpler, less invasive and far more transparent about the way they’re handling our data " Oh? And how are you so sure they won't go the other direction? Because tha…

Ad blockers already have element rules so yes, you can block ads served from the same site. As long as it's possible for an intelligence to distinguish ads from content, it'll be possible to remove ads. It might get more difficult, but you're simply wrong to say it's the end of ad blockers.

Ad blockers can do what you suggest, but it's very rudamentary. What it relies on, almost exclusively, is blocking calls to known ad networks. In my experience, about 95% of ads are blocked this way. Even if it was only 50%, that's still a gigantic number of previously unseen ads being seen.

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

#100

Post by anonymousab »

mahranch wrote: post #98
mintplant wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the ads are instead served up locally, from the site the person is visiting itself, it can't block the ads. Why not? I don't see why an ad blocker couldn't identify and block certain URL schemes/patterns, common scripts, or element structures. Also -- doesn't cross-site tracking rely on third-party cookies from a shared (separate) domain?

> Why not? I think you missed the point, the plugin or program wouldn't have a distinct pattern or scheme since it would be coming from the website you're visiting. Say, for example, I want to show an ad for denture cream. Nothing fancy, just a gif. Well, the URL would look like http://www.randomsite.com/img/filename.gif How do you block that without blocking every image on the website? Granted, what you propose woul…

>How do you block that without blocking every image on the website?

By blocking that specific asset? Blocklists will be much larger and slower reactively, but still far better than nothing.

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