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The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

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Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#101

Post by userbinator »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #55
hannob wrote: post #22

This is so common for the many anti-adblock texts you see these days - they all avoid to talk about the major issues here. (I say that with the background that a significant part of my income comes from ad-financed news pages.) That is: * Security risk through ads (malvertising, ad networks not supporting https etc.). * Ads killing performance (70% CPU for a flash ad is not uncommon). * Privacy (Ad vendors having mos…

I hate ads for all the reasons you cite and because some are hugely distracting. But small websites are not in a position to change the state of affairs, and if nothing changes and people keep blocking their ads, they're going to be dying in large numbers. As a result, everything will be locked into app stores with even less privacy and with many restrictions on the type of content that is allowed. The sort of answer…

Actually, there are many "small websites" which are completely adless and will continue to remain, because the group or individual (usually the latter) is paying for their hosting. Some are hosted on the ISPs of their owners. I've spent many hours on these sites and they also tend to have the most esoteric and interesting content. Unfortunately they do seem to be disappearing from Google's search results, which is a different but also potentially problematic issue.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#102

Post by userbinator »

rewqfdsa wrote: post #19
sputr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it can (and is routinely) done. https://github.com/brockwhittaker/Detect-Adblockers

It's an arms race. Advertisers may be able to detect ad blockers in the short term, but eventually they will lose. That's because users control their machines and advertisers don't. Widespread use of adblock-blockers will only hasten this inevitable defeat. The techniques used by the project to which you've linked can be trivially worked around by detecting the script itself and either not running it or telling it wh…

That's because users control their machines

That is unfortunately not the case in all situations now (e.g. mobile devices).

http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#103

Post by jwmerrill »

fromMars wrote: post #88
BogusIKnow wrote: post #83

Main reason for ad-blockers for me: They try to distract you from reading the text you came for. While in print ads don't (can't) do this. Online they open to the whole page after some time, they constantly animate things to draw your attention from the text, some play sound, videos, left, right, above, below and in the text between paragraphs and capturing links. Main reason probably because they don't really work.

I am also not a fan of annoying ads and maybe I am just a crotchety old guy, but, IMO, using an Ad Blocker and viewing content is theft. If one is concerned with privacy, there are alternative measures such as cookie blocking options, legislation, etc. If the ad formats are annoying then the right thing to do is to let the publisher know and work out a way to pay for the content ad-free or just stop using the site. I…

> using an Ad Blocker and viewing content is theft.

Here's a different POV. Using an ad blocker is not theft: it's a negotiation.

When I click on a link to your site from a site like HN, I have not implicitly agreed to whatever terms you would like to impose on me. I can't even really know them ahead of time.

Instead, I'm sending my User Agent to negotiate fetching some resources. If I decline to fetch your ads, you can feel free to decline to serve me your content. Or you can give the content to me anyway. Your choice.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#104

Post by Macha »

seanwilson wrote: post #21

Is there a reason more sites don't do self hosted ads? Is there a general way these can be blocked as well? If the ad is coming from their own server and displayed with their own custom HTML/CSS, I can't see an obvious way these could be detected and blocked in general.

A certain ad blocking list contains /ads /advertisers etc. in its default patterns

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#105

Post by sologoub »

JDDunn9 wrote: post #25

I remember a time on the Internet before ads, when the only websites were made by geeks who were passionate about the topic. Then came the popup ads, followed by the popup blockers, banners never worked, then came contextual ads. Google made it quick and easy to profit from content and made content a commodity. Currently they are the #1 financier of web spam, and pay off ad-blockers to whitelist their ads. There's no…

What you are describing is a world where only big, well financed, or well known entities can survive. In order to keep the amazing internet we actually have, we need to come up with a model that can be used by small upstarts to either serve smaller markets or to give them time to figure things out and become large over time. Requiring people to publish things for free will only result in the most extreme of views. Look at any Wikipedia article that remotely touches a controversial topic - it will likely present a strongly biased message towards whatever side the maintainer of that article feels strongly about.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#106

Post by lisivka »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #55
hannob wrote: post #22

This is so common for the many anti-adblock texts you see these days - they all avoid to talk about the major issues here. (I say that with the background that a significant part of my income comes from ad-financed news pages.) That is: * Security risk through ads (malvertising, ad networks not supporting https etc.). * Ads killing performance (70% CPU for a flash ad is not uncommon). * Privacy (Ad vendors having mos…

I hate ads for all the reasons you cite and because some are hugely distracting. But small websites are not in a position to change the state of affairs, and if nothing changes and people keep blocking their ads, they're going to be dying in large numbers. As a result, everything will be locked into app stores with even less privacy and with many restrictions on the type of content that is allowed. The sort of answer…

Small sites are not supported by ads — traffic is too low, so small sites will sustain.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#107

Post by [deleted] »

JDDunn9 wrote: post #25

I remember a time on the Internet before ads, when the only websites were made by geeks who were passionate about the topic. Then came the popup ads, followed by the popup blockers, banners never worked, then came contextual ads. Google made it quick and easy to profit from content and made content a commodity. Currently they are the #1 financier of web spam, and pay off ad-blockers to whitelist their ads. There's no…

[deleted]

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#108

Post by JupiterMoon »

DanBC wrote: post #95
JupiterMoon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike like spam and adverts in roughly equal measure and I've never heard of this Boulder Pledge. > But people the people who created those early spam filters - they all signed the Boulder Pledge. They all agreed that not only would they block spam, but they would also never ever buy a product promoted with spam. And people that use spam filters on a daily basis just like the fact that they don't get as much spam…

> I dislike like spam and adverts in roughly equal measure and I've never heard of this Boulder Pledge. How old are you? How long have you been using the Internet? Do you remember the time before commercial use of the WWW?

> Do you remember the time before commercial use of the WWW?

Yes

Any thoughts on the rest of my comments?

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#109

Post by Floegipoky »

DanBC wrote: post #95
JupiterMoon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike like spam and adverts in roughly equal measure and I've never heard of this Boulder Pledge. > But people the people who created those early spam filters - they all signed the Boulder Pledge. They all agreed that not only would they block spam, but they would also never ever buy a product promoted with spam. And people that use spam filters on a daily basis just like the fact that they don't get as much spam…

> I dislike like spam and adverts in roughly equal measure and I've never heard of this Boulder Pledge. How old are you? How long have you been using the Internet? Do you remember the time before commercial use of the WWW?

My favorite part of HN, the reason I prefer this news feed over any other, is because the comments are usually intelligent and civil.

Your comment here is neither, and it just turned a discussion about the morality of ad-blocking and the viability of ad-based revenue models into a dick measuring contest.

Not cool.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#110

Post by adekok »

DanBC wrote: post #66
InclinedPlane wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, visitors don't sign a contract to agree to view ads in exchange for content, content-makers don't own their visitors' eyes or attention and can't expect to just sell them off willy-nilly. I'm very sorry for content-makers who've hitched their financial wagons to ads, I wish things were easier for you, I really do, but I'm not going to view ads, nor am I going to feel bad about it. No more so than if you…

> I'm very sorry for content-makers who've hitched their financial wagons to ads, I wish things were easier for you, I really do, but I'm not going to view ads, nor am I going to feel bad about. No more so than if you had made the poor choice of relying on spam for financial support. People who hated spam signed the Boulder Pledge. People who hate ads tend to say fuck you, I'm blocking the ads but taking the bandwidt…

> People who hate ads tend to say fuck you, I'm blocking the ads but taking the bandwidth anyway.

You ever see stats on ads taking the bandwidth?

http://betanews.com/2015/08/25/ad-blocker-crystal-massively-...

The ad vendors business model depends on the user paying for the ads. Why in living hell are they complaining? I am subsidizing their crappy business model. If I want to stop subsidizing them, it's my right.

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