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Just doesn’t feel good

marco.org

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Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#31

Post by hullo »

tylersgordon wrote: post #4

I wonder why he made this decision after launching. The consequences and economics of ad-blocking are nothing new or surprising, and I'm sure he knew this while developing the app. Sounds like he was threatened or blackmailed.

One can easily take him at his word that he did not expect to be pinned to #1 on the app sales charts, because that would have been a crazy thing to expect. With that came the kind of attention that he's show drives him crazy in the past, it really is a Flappy Bird analog.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#32

Post by tptacek »

cstross wrote: post #10
DanBlake wrote: post #2

Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…

Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…

Why exactly do you think that's a dispositive argument? Poll the public about their appetite for paywalls and you'll get an even more vigorous response --- paywalls are reviled by normal people. And yet logically, if you think ad-supported content isn't a good model, you should support paywalls. They're transparent and up-front and don't require cross-site tracking.

Really, this is pretty simple: people just want it both ways. They feel like it's their device and they're entitled to control what's displayed on it and what consumes their bandwidth --- and, fair enough, that --- but they also feel entitled to read or watch anything posted on the Internet on their terms.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#33

Post by micahgoulart »

This series of tweets from Anil Dash might give some insight into why Marco decided to pull Peace. Basically while the big publishers of content can adapt to ads being blocked and create native ads or sell "featured content", small publishers like blogs dont have the time to work on that and rely on third-party ad tech like Google AdSense for monetization.

Worth a read: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644560336369119232

> @anildash Okay, ad blocking advocates and users (I am one, sometimes!), we're going to have a new conversation. You ready?

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#34

Post by carlosrg »

DanBlake wrote: post #2

Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…

Doubt it. He probably just thought the app wasn't going to be so popular. He's selling a lot of copies and he just doesn't feel comfortable with it. Hats off to Marco for putting his ethics first, not the money.

I said this yesterday and I'm going to repeat myself in this thread: adblocking is not going to "fix" the web as people are saying, for the simple reason ad blockers block all ads, not only annoying ones. The big publishers probably are not going to even notice it, because they have other ways of making money, but the small blogger will have a hard time when the ads on his blog get blocked, probably the only source of income for his site.

And we're forgetting people that can't afford anything besides some little AdSense ad to advertise their business. How are they going to reach people if all their ads get blocked?

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#36

Post by tptacek »

TillE wrote: post #22
cstross wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…

It's really disappointing that all those the-sky-is-falling articles from tech journalists have apparently caused this. Nothing has changed, no new issues were raised. Marco has talked about and basically supported ad blocking in the past. I guess he just doesn't feel like being the focus of their ire right now.

That's not true. Normal people as a general rule don't install much software on their computers, and they install even fewer browser extensions (now that it's harder to trick them into doing that).

But people do install apps; they're crazy about apps.

There are popular, good publications on the Internet that get 80+% of their revenue from ads, and those publications have a huge iOS readership, and those iOS users tend to be on later iOS versions. Publishers aren't making it up: they're going to take a pay cut because of the content blocker features on iOS.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#38

Post by mbrutsch »

cstross wrote: post #10
DanBlake wrote: post #2

Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…

Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…

> journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat

You mean bloggers.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#39

Post by mitchty »

Here is the whole thing about ad supported sites: We are worth a lot less than you think, and also overall an individuals monthly worth in advertisements is also small.

https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/

Turns out, we're worth about $6.20/mo in advertising. Lets just round this up to $10/month to not have ads but still support sites we visit.

If content providers aren't working on an alternative like the above, I'll continue to block ads. If you want to stop me from accessing the site by detecting that I will also kill that. If that stops working I won't see your content.

Forcing me to watch ads with zero alternative though, nope. Google contributor is a start, but this needs to be across all ad platforms.

I'm not against funding people, I'm against funding ad agencies and their tracking and their other maladies. Such as trojaned ad networks, silly amounts of javascript and data, etc....

What I'm saying here is content providers and ad agencies and us ALL need to fix this. In my opinion though, this is all a result of the Faustian bargain the content providers have chosen and the inevitable escalation the ad companies have taken. I value my time and attention and am willing to pay to not have that taken away from me. Just don't force me to buy into ads, do like the twit network does if you have to. I've tried out almost all of their sponsors, not because of the company advertising but because of the person and people recommending it.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#40

Post by theworstshill »

Sounds like marco chose a lump payment model instead (from the advertisers themselves). Speculation of course, but I wouldn't pull something I worked hard on in just a couple of days, especially if it was succeeding and earning a ton of money.
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