Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers • Hacker News Board

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#31

Post by dogma1138 » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:52 PM UTC

hiphopyo wrote: post #5

> Look at New Yorker, for example. The ads are generally interesting and feature great photography. Wish Google would introduce some sort of minimum design requirements for their AdSense image ads. I also wish they'd give publishers full control over the appearance of their text ads. Right now, these ads look horrible, and only premium publishers (ie. websites with millions users) are given this sort of control.

The downside of that is that it makes harder to distinguish advertisement from actual content.

Some sites are quite good ad hiding sponsored links and there is way too much advertisement masquerading as editorials already.

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#32

Post by acheron » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:55 PM UTC

bitmapbrother wrote: post #25

Kenji wrote: post #7

I'll be honest, I hate all ads, regardless of how good they are. I think it's creepy and fills my mind with things I do not want it to be filled with. For me, the entire debate is silly because it's my screen -> my decision what appears. I think it barely matters how good the ads are. I've only seen one single website that did ads right (they were perfectly embedded into a mosaic pattern of site functionality, things…

>For me, the entire debate is silly because it's my screen -> my decision what appears What a silly statement. Does the same logic also apply to your TV and radio? You are visiting a site that gives you content for free in return for viewing their ads. If you don't like that contract then don't visit the site and limit your browsing to sites that adhere to your personal contract.

"Does the same logic also apply to your TV and radio?"

Yes? Or are you saying I shouldn't be allowed to change the station during a commercial?

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#33

Post by dogma1138 » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

hughperkins wrote: post #15

acdha wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The New York Times has a million digital-only subscribers who might disagree: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/05/business/the-n...

Yeah, I signed up for that. But they still show me ads :-P So, then I installed RequestPolicy et al, and have a guilt-free, ad-free existence :-)

On the anecdotal side their certificate expired a month ago.

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=requestpolicy...

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#34

Post by teddyh » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:57 PM UTC

bitmapbrother wrote: post #28

Ads will never go away and these ad blockers will soon become worthless if the advertising companies ever think they're a threat. There are so many easy ways to defeat ad blocking. This is why I despise Apple for trying to publicize web ad blocking while letting their ads be displayed in their little gated community. Apple is essentially ruining it for the people that do use ad blockers because we're going to reach a…

> Ads will never go away

Sure they could. Look at São Paulo, for instance.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-kic...

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#35

Post by douche » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

cbhl wrote: post #18

douche wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, if all the websites that are the most flagrantly abusive and dependent on ad-support (the Buzzfeeds, Crackeds, HuffingtonPosts, etc) disappeared tomorrow, how much have we really lost? I can survive without another shitty slide-show of the 17 Most Ridiculous Cats Twerking, or another news article that is a summary of a summary of a Reuters, machine-learned bot-written summary of a press release about an abs…

You would also lose Google, GMail, and YouTube.

I've never been unduly bothered by ads directly on Google's properties. Text search ads are almost quaint today.

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#36

Post by ForkFed » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:01 PM UTC

striking wrote: post #6

It was inevitable that this would happen. I remember when Opera first added pop-up blocking and plenty of people got mad. This is the same thing: ads are burning energy, bandwidth, and our time. Now that consumers have been subjected to piles of abusive ads, they're just blocking all of the ads regardless of how bad they are.

This notion of "publishers" vs. "comsumers" is myopic ... we're all sitting in the same boat. Lot of benevolent and ad displaying publishers out there (f.x. stackoverflow) and same goes for lot of consumers who donate to content creators they cherish.

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#37

Post by Animats » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

The Mozilla Foundation has come out against ad blocking:

"Content blocking software should focus on addressing potential user needs (such as on performance, security, and privacy) instead of blocking specific types of content (such as advertising)."[1]

This is sad. Their slogan used to be "Work for mankind, not for the man". But the Mozilla Foundation is ad-funded. They currently have a deal with Yahoo to make Yahoo Search their preferred search engine. Before that, it was Google. Those deals bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. So they can't afford to bite the hand that feeds them.

This places them in conflict with Apple. Apple makes their money selling stuff to end users at a high markup. They can be very anti-advertiser if they choose. Apple could block all ads on their devices and market that as a feature.

[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/10/07/proposed-principles...

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#38

Post by timbits » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

Ethical ad blockers should let the web page know that they are blocking ads so that the web page can chose to not display the content, or offer a paid option. It will avoid a stupid arm race between the two parties, and it's transparent.

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#39

Post by greenyoda » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:13 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #26

acdha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So … in your idealized 90s web, how does a reporter pay their mortgage? Storage space was never the expensive part even back then – it's always been the skilled humans who create things.

> how does a reporter pay their mortgage Some combination of charging up front for access (with only a few samples shown to people who don't subscribe), charging for timely access (see LWN, which provides articles 1-2 weeks earlier for subscribers), and patronage (if you want to see more investigative reports like this, pay me via Patreon).

I agree, but this implies that these reporters would need to write articles that are useful or interesting enough for someone to want to pay money for. And writing like that takes real work and talent to produce, very different from churning out 50 click-bait articles per day. Lots of writers and sites that survive on the ad-based model would probably die off if they had to switch to a pay-for-service model.

Re: Ad-blocking: a sign that web publishers don’t care about readers

#40

Post by krapp » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:19 PM UTC

acheron wrote: post #32

bitmapbrother wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For me, the entire debate is silly because it's my screen -> my decision what appears What a silly statement. Does the same logic also apply to your TV and radio? You are visiting a site that gives you content for free in return for viewing their ads. If you don't like that contract then don't visit the site and limit your browsing to sites that adhere to your personal contract.

"Does the same logic also apply to your TV and radio?" Yes? Or are you saying I shouldn't be allowed to change the station during a commercial?

Viewership in tv and radio isn't measured directly, but indirectly through polls and surveys. You're counted as part of the set of potential viewers based on your age, location and whether or not you have a Nielsen box (or whatever they use nowadays.) TV stations don't actually know that you decided to turn the channel, and they don't really care, since that time has already been paid for.

When you can very accurately determine how many people have seen a web ad and you know how many people haven't, that more directly affects how much value can be extracted from that advertising. In terms of the actual effect on revenue, blocking a web ad would seem to have more impact than ignoring a tv or radio ad.