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

Just doesn’t feel good

marco.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 315 posts

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#241

Post by wang_li »

anseljh wrote: post #114
msandford wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If HTTP was a contract whereby you agreed to look at everything that was sent over then your analogy would make sense. But HTTP is a protocol, not a legally binding contract. So no.

The terms of service for the site that's delivered to you over HTTP, though--that is a legally binding contract. Some have no-ad-blocking terms.

This is brilliant. I've added a request header to my browser:

X-You-Owe-Me-If-You-Send-Content-In-Response-To-This-Request: $1,000,000,000

I'm going to be rich, rich, rich!!!!

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#242

Post by vitd »

Killswitch wrote: post #154
sbarre wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, you'll just not go into the store. Let's not go through this again, it's been demonstrated over and over that the analogy you are making is flawed.

So you have a service you're offering, I sign up and pay your small fee, and then share my login details with thousands of others, making you lose money. In the same sense as all the arguments against ads. You're not stealing anything. No you're not. But you're wasting resources that the owner has to pay for.

At that point, you have agreed to a contract - the terms of service you have to click through to get an account. The terms of service say that you agree not to do that. When you simply read a public web page you are not agreeing to anything.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#243

Post by mikeash »

s73v3r wrote: post #153
sbarre wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, you'll just not go into the store. Let's not go through this again, it's been demonstrated over and over that the analogy you are making is flawed.

I don't see any flaw in the analogy.

Not looking at an advertisement is not the same as stealing.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#244

Post by kaolinite »

publicfig wrote: post #84

I'm really disappointed by the amount of support he has gotten for this. He has directly mislead consumers into buying a product with an intent of support, and then immediately pulls it and forces the user into a difficult process with Apple to reclaim that money. Anyone that is unsuccessful in the process will have their money go directly to the developer. I understand the possibility change of heart, but that doesn…

I think you're forgetting the fact that this application still works. Sure, when iOS 10 is released it may break - but the same could be said for any now-abandoned app.

It's a shame but he gave people notice (instead of just stopping development) and recommended people request refunds. This is nowhere close to being a scam.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#245

Post by tptacek »

x0x0 wrote: post #237
billyhoffman wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 days is a short period of time, but the context over those days is massively different. On Sept 16th, a few dozen beta testers may have been using Peace and giving Marco feedback. On Sept 18, Peace is the top ranked app in the app store, displacing MineCraft. MineCraft! Estimates are in the 12000-15000 downloads on the first day[1]. You look in your iTunes connect account and realize you on the path to make $100K o…

Dunno, marco just seems like an entitled jerk who's constructed a maze of rationalization around ad blocking. If you don't like the ads a website shows, well, you should have found that out of the first visit. Great. Then don't visit again. Here's his rationalization: Publishers won’t solve this problem: they cannot consistently enforce standards of decency and security on the ad networks that they embed in their sit…

He's an entitled jerk because he released a piece of software and then decided to refund his users and take it down?

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#246

Post by lmm »

untog wrote: post #157
ixtli wrote: post #55

I hate this supposition that everyone should bend over backwards to allow people who make money in a certain way continue making money in that way. Am I the only one thinks that the user's experience should be more important than everything else? Annoying advertisements are, in practice, the result of people failing to be creative in monetization. Ars Technica, for instance, has done a great job of integrating ads in…

I hate this supposition that everyone should bend over backwards to allow people who make money in a certain way continue making money in that way. You could just stop visiting the site that offends you. That would be the actual principled way to treat this - the content is not worth the price of admission. Instead, ad blockers let you take the content and sidestep the price of admission. I absolutely agree that medi…

By the time I've clicked the link I've already seen the ad. Or more likely been redirected to a malware site.

If links came with a little tag on them saying "this will take you to a site with malicious advertising" then I'd do as you'd suggest. But they don't. So it's either block ads, or only visit sites I already know about.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#247

Post by lmm »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #54
mitchty wrote: post #39

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…

As the verge pointed out[1], small publishers do have a way to get paid that will work a lot better than subscriptions. They'll just put their content on Facebook -- ad blockers don't work inside the Facebook app. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10233010

I'm ok with this. Facebook at least operates their advertising with some minimal level of... respect is too strong a word, but facebook won't redirect you to a page that tries to get you to install viruses.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#248

Post by mikeash »

vermontdevil wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ten…

I thought ad blockers on iOS only block ads on Safari web pages, not ads within apps?

Yes, that's true. A lot of people have been interpreting iOS content blocking as Apple's way of pushing people to make more apps. Content blockers also can't block Apple's official "hey, we have an app for this web site" banner that you can have Safari show for your site.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#249

Post by donohoe »

mitchty wrote: post #39

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…

Looks like that number was from 2013?

Can anyone tell me how they would figure out that number today?

I've looked into a similar approach and would love a reliable way to answer "how much does a publisher need to charge to not have ads".

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#250

Post by philoushka »

shanecleveland wrote: post #73

I applaud the move on his part, but should have had some forethought before releasing it. He has skin in the game: profited from Instapaper (essentially an ad-stripper), sells ads on his blog and produces a podcast that profits from ad sales. His advertising may be more acceptable in terms of aesthetics and privacy, but it is an acknowledgement, nonetheless, that advertising is the best possible monetization model an…

I realize it's only one of your points, and not intending on cherry-picking.

> produces a podcast that profits from ad sales

There are different forms of ads. He's not saying that ads suck, and it wouldn't be a conflict of interest for him to do ad-reads on ATP while making an iOS content blocker.

Overcast also has a skip-fwd button that you can configure in sensible increments. I know I use it maybe 2-3 times per podcast episode.

Podcast ad-reads are incredibly effective, and I haven't heard one person complain about them.

There are good/better/best forms of advertising, none of which are punch the monkey, malvertising, and those that CPU hog, use your cell data, and drain your battery.

For me, I'll keep blocking on the web, going pee during a TV commerical, DVR skipping, podcast forwarding, etc.

Post reply on HN