Adblockers: The Only Way Out • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#11

Post by douche » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:08 PM UTC

masterleep wrote: post #7

If publishers start to really notice ad blockers, they are just going to proxy everything through their web servers.

Increasingly, I'm finding myself using Stylish to nuke page elements that are irritating or terrible. Unless they make the ad content indistinguishable from the real content, they can't force me to look at their ads (or the parts of their sites that I find useless, distracting, or aggravating).

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#12

Post by vollmond » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

masterleep wrote: post #7

If publishers start to really notice ad blockers, they are just going to proxy everything through their web servers.

Wouldn't that necessarily lead to an increase in ad quality? If I proxy ads through my server, that increases my costs, which increases what I would have to make from the ads, which means the advertisers will have to see a higher return from their campaigns to justify the higher cost.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#13

Post by omouse » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #2

Quite optimistic views there. Most content doesn't have a real monetary value beyond generating views. There won't be an acceptable ads consortium, advertisers will only get more ruthless or die.

That's a good thing. There are a lot of things in life that constitute "make work". There's armies of writers and researchers out there who are working on creating filler content. They shouldn't be working on that junk. Advertisers don't need to be tracking damn near everything because much of the time that data and analysis is completely ignored.

I think ads are the clearest sign that our society has generated a lot of make-work to keep people busy. Depressing.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#14

Post by omouse » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

Ads are a very bad hack to the problem of getting people to spread news of a product through word-of-mouth. Things like the AeroPress get lots of sales and I've only seen them sitting on a shelf in a coffee shop, being talked about online, etc.

The ads I see for New Relic, PagerDuty, PyCharm, etc. are relevant to me but they are not actionable. They would be relevant and actionable if I am consciously looking for these products as part of a report that will kick-start the procurement process.

All the books I've bought in the last year were based on recommendations from blogs and podcasts.

We're at peak ads on the internet.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#15

Post by schneitj » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #8

masterleep wrote: post #7

If publishers start to really notice ad blockers, they are just going to proxy everything through their web servers.

That won't help; ad blockers can block ads on the same domain as the content.

How does it tell the ads and content apart? Short of having some sort of flagging system with a user base, I don't think there is a technical way to do this.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#16

Post by Spivak » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #8

masterleep wrote: post #7

If publishers start to really notice ad blockers, they are just going to proxy everything through their web servers.

That won't help; ad blockers can block ads on the same domain as the content.

One would have to serve a different document structure to each request so that static filters stop working, but then ad blockers would start using heuristics to determine which elements on the page are likely to be ads and so the cycle continues.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#17

Post by kbenson » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

chias wrote: post #9

Unless the advertising landscape changes drastically from what it is today, I will never not use an ad-blocker, and I reject the notion that it is somehow unethical: for over a decade and a half the online advertising industry has been exploiting every technical loophole or shenanigan it has been able to find in order to degrade my experience, security, privacy for the sake of their bottom line; the comparatively rec…

The argument isn't that it's unethical to not watch ads, it's that it's unethical to not watch the ads but still take what they offer in exchange. Any industry would be up in arms with people walking away with their goods without paying. It's really not that different than the MPAA or RIAA, especially in that since we don't like them, we feel justified in behavior that normally we wouldn't take. Does the RIAA being a shitty organization mean that we should steal (music) from their constituents, or that we should boycott them? Does the MPAA doing shitty things mean we should steal movies from them, or that we should boycott them? How is viewing content without seeing ads any different? Two wrongs don't make a right.

Now, to clarify, I'm not expecting anyone to stop using ad-blockers. That's stupid, there are very real reasons why they are useful, but acting like there's no ethical problem with the current situation, IMO, is ridiculous. The first step to fixing the problem in a sustainable way is acknowledging the problem in it's entirety, and that includes our part. Otherwise whichever side convinces enough politicians first gets a temporary advantage, until it sways the other way, or we finally get better legislation. Why not aim for a good compromise from the beginning, so everyone wins?

> It's like saying "yeah uncle Bob gets drunk and beats us but his buddy is a really nice guy just trying to get by". Sorry Bob, you're not welcome in my home.

Yet you keep using his summer home for vacation. Perhaps cutting off contact would send a clearer signal?

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#18

Post by VLM » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

chasing wrote: post #6

LoSboccacc wrote: post #2

Quite optimistic views there. Most content doesn't have a real monetary value beyond generating views. There won't be an acceptable ads consortium, advertisers will only get more ruthless or die.

> Most content doesn't have a real monetary value beyond generating views. There won't be an acceptable ads consortium, advertisers will only get more ruthless or die. Let's hope that sort of content dies. I mean: 10 Reasons I Hope That Kind of Content Dies -- #6 Will Blow Your Mind!!

Its interesting that my local newspaper is primarily a social network for people I don't care about.

A concert review by someone I don't care about, a theater review by someone I don't care about, a probably paid restaurant review by someone I don't care about.

They do a heavy business in reselling a Reuters feed, corporate press releases, and government press releases, but I don't need any of that, or I get it from the source.

Its quite possible "news" as a filler product is obsolete.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#19

Post by hugh4 » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #8

masterleep wrote: post #7

If publishers start to really notice ad blockers, they are just going to proxy everything through their web servers.

That won't help; ad blockers can block ads on the same domain as the content.

But there's a BUY degree of A mixing that they NEW can't cope with AUDI surely.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#20

Post by joshontheweb » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #17

chias wrote: post #9

Unless the advertising landscape changes drastically from what it is today, I will never not use an ad-blocker, and I reject the notion that it is somehow unethical: for over a decade and a half the online advertising industry has been exploiting every technical loophole or shenanigan it has been able to find in order to degrade my experience, security, privacy for the sake of their bottom line; the comparatively rec…

The argument isn't that it's unethical to not watch ads, it's that it's unethical to not watch the ads but still take what they offer in exchange. Any industry would be up in arms with people walking away with their goods without paying. It's really not that different than the MPAA or RIAA, especially in that since we don't like them, we feel justified in behavior that normally we wouldn't take. Does the RIAA being a…

These sites should block users who are ad blocking rather than allow the users in and place a guilt trip on them. How am i supposed to know when i click on a random link that the owner of the page has a unwritten expectation that i should view their ads?