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Adblockers: The Only Way Out

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Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#51

Post by lotsoflumens »

logfromblammo wrote: post #40

Advertisers will never be able to overcome the fact that humans have free will. With sufficient mental training, any person can add an ad blocker to their own brain. The mind of such a person instantly disengages the instant it detects an unsolicited sales pitch. Having conceived the end goal, we now imagine such tools as may be helpful to achieve it. Perhaps it is useful to build a tool that blocks the most intrusiv…

>>At this point, if you want me to attend to ads, you will have to pay me, directly. I will open one end of a channel that leads to me. If the cash stops coming through, I'll close it. If the cash that comes through is insufficient to compensate for the peace of mind I would otherwise have by closing it, I'll close it.

+1000 This is the same conclusion that I've reached. Advertisers must pay us. There is no way that the free-ride that advertisers have been getting is going to continue. We control what enters our minds, not advertising companies. If they want to pitch products or services to us then they can pay for "qualified leads" : those people who explicitly allow them to advertise by first being paid.

We have the means to enable this (even somewhat anonymously) with bitcoin. Once the advertisers get over the initial disconnect with their current system, they (at least the enlightened ones) will understand that this helps them too. Instead of desperately hoping that someone out of millions will carefully consider their message, they can get a much higher response by advertising to the people who are more likely to be receptive.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#52

Post by LoSboccacc »

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.

case in point https://citytog.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/iphone-users-beware...

advertisers sending promotions trough iphone exploits

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#53

Post by Menge »

x0x0 wrote: post #42
a3n wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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: I go to a site. That site hands me over to a completely different network. My target site's owner has no idea what's running on that other network. My target site exposed me to danger. No thank you.

Yet somehow you still keep going to the target site.

I'd agree if you are saying that's no coincidence? The profit from the ads on the target site are the fuel to push its content to the top of results over better or more relevant content with less financial motivation or efficiency.

In other words, blocking ads on a large scale causes a readjustment that is not necessarily bad for the overall ecosystem since most of that money is actively winning a zero sum game against better content with less (desperate) backing.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#54

Post by Litost »

I'm thinking aloud and obviously taking a negative purist view here, but does anyone else wonder, if in 20-30 years, if civilisation has actually advanced any, if we'll look back at ads in the same way we now seem to be treating tobacco, sugar, alchol etc. etc. ie a poison, but in this case of the mind rather than the body [1] [2]?

I mean all that mind bogglingly dark patterny/cynical gameplay we engage in everytime we watch one. And there's also all the negative, misery inducing, pressure when you realise, even if you sold the house and spent it all on plastic surgery you wouldn't be anywhere near as attractive or thin as the size zero model they've just tried to use to sell you the gadget you probably don't need, that you probably can't afford that was likely made by some "exploited" person from resources that probably aren't sustainable and then shipped halfway round the world. And then you go and buy it anyway and hate yourself for being gullible and buying something you probably can't afford... just so you can support some guy who's just doing his job but secretly hates himself for engaging in a zero-sum game with the rest of mankind and persuading you to buy something you... every time he sits down at his desk so he can buy his kids new ipads for christmas when they'd arguably be better off without anyway [3].

Another nash equilibrium in a world crying out for socially optimal solutions [4] or just an another inevitable inefficiency of capitalism [5].

I mean what ever happened to the Just In Time philosophy. We've ran with it on the supply side so stuff is cheaper than it should be, but every day i get bombarded by tens of emails from companies investing a lot of effort in trying to kiddology me into buying stuff which i thankfully just filter away (as i do with the rest of it - ad-blockers, don't watch live tv or listen to radio stations with ads, don't buy into the whole sky pay for stuff and then also have to watch ads). It's almost like a stupid tax.

At the end of the day I'm just not going to buy your thing so stop wasting my time/sanity/electricity/bandwidth and yours. It's not as though, for example, if i want to buy a new tent (which so far i've done about every 5 years) or do a canvas (probably twice a year) i can't just wait ten minutes for the next millets sale or photobox offer (i mean when does photobox not have a sale on for something they just keep increasing the base price of anyway). And anyway i'd probably be better going somewhere that had spent slightly less on their kiddology so their quality sucked less.

I entirely get why people do it, the "good" of the website/service/... i provide hopefully outweighs the "evil" of the mechanisms i go to try and support it, but if you didn't "need" the money, would anyone go anywhere near an ad-broker?

I can't help but think if we factored money out of this whole equation, this whole pyramid of snafu would collapse and we can move onto a slightly more healthy, enlightened society? Is this the best we can do? Would basic income help [6]? Or do i have to wait for likely societal collapse to a lower energy level to render this whole thing moot (see Tainter)?

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/litost/15113770968/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjCrL40JIM

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGab38pKscw

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILgxeNBK_8

[5] https://libcom.org/library/inefficiency-capitalism-brian-oli...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#55

Post by qq66 »

On the flip side of this, I ran a startup that absolutely could not have existed without targeted Web advertising. Our first product was an add-in for collaborating on PowerPoint presentations, and we were able to economically target ads towards people who were actually searching for "PowerPoint collaboration" or similar keywords. I don't see how we could have found those people, or they could have found us, in a more effective or direct way.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#56

Post by developer1 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #40

Advertisers will never be able to overcome the fact that humans have free will. With sufficient mental training, any person can add an ad blocker to their own brain. The mind of such a person instantly disengages the instant it detects an unsolicited sales pitch. Having conceived the end goal, we now imagine such tools as may be helpful to achieve it. Perhaps it is useful to build a tool that blocks the most intrusiv…

Queue the pundits who will claim that the reason advertising is supposedly effective is that you cannot physically ignore the brain washing. They always pop up to claim that no matter how strongly you believe that advertising's manipulation does not affect you, it does. That your subconscious sucks it all in, regardless of the effort your conscious mind makes to filter it out.

I go out of my way to stop purchasing products whose advertisements I see too often, or who use emotional advertising that has nothing to do with their product. One example: I stopped buying Dove products the very first time I saw one of their "real beauty" campaign ads. Bloody hell, you're only selling soap. What on Earth makes advertising people think that stroking the egos of people with body image issues would work? Perhaps it works on a lot of people, but I sure as hell am not one of them.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#57

Post by stegosaurus »

Is there some sort of odd 'bubble' thing going on here? Is there anyone out there who doesn't work at an advertising company that cares about this? Are people on HN simply playing devil's advocate?

I don't know anyone who cares for advertising or for the relevant business models one jot. Considering it 'unethical' to block ads is simply laughable. I don't want them to exist at all!

When I browse the web I don't want random blobs of capitalism shoved down my throat at every opportunity. I don't want an SUV. I don't even want to know such a thing exists.

The 'paying for content' angle is so far off the mark it makes me feel as if I have some sort of mental illness. I can't even think of the words to describe how the statement isn't even 'wrong', it's just nonsense.

Allowing Mega Big Corp to bombard my brain so that an artist can eat is a broken paradigm. What gives them the right? Lots of people like Mega Big Corp, so I should be battered into submission until I fall in line too? They have 'money'? I don't want 'money' on my Internet. It wasn't like this, before.

I don't care about how 'obtrusive' your advertising is. I don't care what colour it is, whether it's animated, what font you use. I don't want it. Just like when I take a walk in the forest I don't want cars.

I don't care how 'unethical' you feel me blocking adverts is, either. Use your men with guns; and forcibly lock me in a box. Prevent me from doing it. Then we'll see who's 'unethical'.

edit: WRT 'not going to the sites'; it's just not a realistic option, is it? The equivalent for TV would be not watching it. The equivalent for living in a city (ex. London bus ads, tube ads, billboards on roads, etc) would be not living in a city.

If you don't want to consume advertising there is no choice left. It's either block ads, try to cognitively block ads, or simply don't interact with society/culture any more. (I actually do try to limit myself to ad-free sites, not out of an ethical compulsion, but because often they're just better in general; e.g. HN, Wikipedia, forums/mailing lists, etc)

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#58

Post by CJefferson »

pdkl95 wrote: post #30
CJefferson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (for this situation) ad-blockers are starting to enter a war, where they try to remove adverts while keeping websites functional. It would be nice to have an agreed way for websites to say "No ads? Go away", but I imagine most sites would choose to activate it, so ad-blockers would ignore it anyway, similar to do-not-track.

Sometimes I read webpages with /usr/bin/curl. Sorry, but you aren't going to convince anyone that I am somehow morally obligated to copy the URLs to a computer with a graphical web browser to see some ads. Much like how the "first-sale doctrine" limits a publisher's rights over a work after a copy first changes hands, you do not get to dictate how the client renders your HTML or if they choose to run your javascript…

You are the one who introduced "moral obligation", and "dictating" to the conversation, please don't invent words I did not use.

I simply said it would be nice for website owners to express their opinion on ad-blocking (some are pro, some are anti), and then users could choose to use that information.

If this gets into a war, it won't be hard for website authors to start sending you webpages where you have to call the javascript for the content (with ads) to appear -- some websites already do. I would suspect however those who write ad blockers will be more motivated to block ads, than websites will be to write ad-blocker-blocers.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#59

Post by logfromblammo »

developer1 wrote: post #56
logfromblammo wrote: post #40

Advertisers will never be able to overcome the fact that humans have free will. With sufficient mental training, any person can add an ad blocker to their own brain. The mind of such a person instantly disengages the instant it detects an unsolicited sales pitch. Having conceived the end goal, we now imagine such tools as may be helpful to achieve it. Perhaps it is useful to build a tool that blocks the most intrusiv…

Queue the pundits who will claim that the reason advertising is supposedly effective is that you cannot physically ignore the brain washing. They always pop up to claim that no matter how strongly you believe that advertising's manipulation does not affect you, it does. That your subconscious sucks it all in, regardless of the effort your conscious mind makes to filter it out. I go out of my way to stop purchasing pr…

I think that may actually be more advertising for the advertising industry. Let's see the results of the comparison between the control group and the experimental group.

I don't think any such data exists, particularly among those who have consciously decided to ignore the ads.

  Company: Why should we pay you if people are ignoring the ads?
  Admen: Because they work *better* if you aren't paying attention.
  Company: Really?
  Admen: Absolutely!
  Company: We're not sure about that...
  Admen: Ladies and gentlemen, mister Kevin Nealon.
  Mr. Subliminal: I get that you have concerns
      (keep paying us)
      about the effectiveness of subliminal advertising,
      (it really works)
      but you should take a look at this chart
      (totally legit)
      showing what appears to be ad budget on the x axis
      (sex axis)
      and product sales on the y axis
      (why not buy more ads?).
      As you can see,
      (really just a model's ass)
      more ads mean more sales.  So in conclusion,
      (buy more ads)
      your company should definitely buy more ads from us.
  Company: We'd like to increase our advertising budget.

Re: Adblockers: The Only Way Out

#60

Post by chias »

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…

> How is viewing content without seeing ads any different?

It's very different, because the MPAA and RIAA do not (and do not claim to) give their content away for free. You can't (claim to) give things away for free and then argue that it was unethical that people didn't quid-pro-quo somehow. To clarify something in my original comment that some people further down the comment chain seem to be misunderstanding, when I said

> If your business model relies on technical tricks whose ethics are in a very dark-grey area, you do not get to play the ethics card when I use a technical trick to protect myself from you.

I am not only referring to the advertising industry. If you are a content publisher and you use any of the vast majority of ad networks to meet your bottom line, then your business model relies on technical tricks whose ethics are in a very dark grey area, and I have no qualms using technical tricks to protect myself from you or those you chose to trust with displaying content on your website.

I respect the opinions of content creators who believe that ad-blockers are unethical, and if you run a site that says "if you use an ad blocker please do not use this site" then I respect that opinion too and will stop using your site. But if you run a website on which you claim to offer your content for free while surreptitiously violating (or allowing others to violate) my security and privacy (especially without even warning me first), then I have no qualms consuming your content for the asking price and not viewing your ads. I have yet to see an argument against this point of view that has any merit, but I am of course willing to change my opinion if and when I do.

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