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The Ad Blocking Wars

nytimes.com

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181–190 of 236 posts

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#181

Post by trophycase »

adblawk wrote: post #43
mschuster91 wrote: post #3

Advertising is the maybe best example of Capitalism going raving mad. We consumers tell the media with every single installation of Adblock: fuck off, we don't want to be data-mined. We don't want to be interrupted every time we open a new tab that we might like a penis enlargement. And especially: WE CONSUMERS FUCKING HATE THE LIES OF ADVERTISING. Prior to the internet, people tended to actually believe what adverti…

Just look back 50 years, how many ads an average Western person saw a day and how many today... 50 years ago the average western person had access to maybe 1/50th of the information they access to now thanks to the internet and in large part thanks to advertising. Advertising allows businesses to outsource the consideration (and associated decisions) of the value of their users. A business dependent on advertising do…

If they're not in a position to spend $15 a month for your products, then how are the ads bringing in money in the first place. One would assume that in order for the company purchasing the ad to want to pay for it, people seeing the ad have to be spending money on their product... which sort of implies dispensible income.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#182

Post by vog »

abrookewood wrote: post #136
tracker1 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have young children? It's far more noticeable in children under 10... but I see it at times in adults too. Just little points of perception that a little shift can mean significant gains to advertisers.

Well, my kids simply don't watch commercial TV. Everything used to be DVD based and now its all streamed, so they never see ads. I remember the first time they actually saw and advertisement - my son screamed! "Where did my show go??" "It's OK .. it's just an ad". A few seconds of silence passed and then he asked:"What's an ad?"

Congrats! This is really a great step forward, and may improve their childhood a lot. Children should become used to consume media at their own pace, without distracting noise (ads). Also, their schedule should be determined by their parents, not the TV program.

Moreover, it may help to make fun of the ads they still see. (on websites, outside at walls, etc.) This may improve their awareness, and hopefully later their critical thinking.

BTW, when I started not to watch TV anymore, I expected that I would miss something, but I didn't miss anything at all!

Friends told me about the few cool series I missed, and I simply bought the DVDs. It is a huge increase in comfort, watching those at my own pace, in their original length rather than the blown-up-with-ads length.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#183

Post by vog »

JacobJans wrote: post #165
colmvp wrote: post #14

Arguments seem to glaze over the ethics of advertising and imply that it's a benign, acceptable practice. Yet the more I read psychology, the more I am aware of ways advertising can manipulate the thoughts we have towards brands when we're not aware of it. So to protect myself, I try to avoid ads in any circumstances (ublock, minimal usage of ad-supported apps). Quite frankly I'd rather have more subscriptions. I pay…

"Spotify, ad-free magazines on my Kindle, and local journalists" all manipulate the thoughts you have. We don't live in a bubble; we're a product of our surroundings. No aspect of the world is benign. The fact that ads may "change you" is not an argument against advertising, because it doesn't distinguish advertising from anything else, at all. It seems to me there is a moral judgement happening here. But, what is th…

This line of argument is heavily flawed, due to wildly mixing the parent's specific term "manipulating" with the broader term "changing".

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#185

Post by kriro »

abrookewood wrote: post #136
tracker1 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have young children? It's far more noticeable in children under 10... but I see it at times in adults too. Just little points of perception that a little shift can mean significant gains to advertisers.

Well, my kids simply don't watch commercial TV. Everything used to be DVD based and now its all streamed, so they never see ads. I remember the first time they actually saw and advertisement - my son screamed! "Where did my show go??" "It's OK .. it's just an ad". A few seconds of silence passed and then he asked:"What's an ad?"

This is an awesome story...would make for a great ad for Netflix (well irony aside).

I can vividly picture the "Where did my show go??" moment :)

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#187

Post by punee »

ddeck wrote: post #175
colmvp wrote: post #14

Arguments seem to glaze over the ethics of advertising and imply that it's a benign, acceptable practice. Yet the more I read psychology, the more I am aware of ways advertising can manipulate the thoughts we have towards brands when we're not aware of it. So to protect myself, I try to avoid ads in any circumstances (ublock, minimal usage of ad-supported apps). Quite frankly I'd rather have more subscriptions. I pay…

I think there's a distinction to be made between advertising and marketing, at least the way I define them. Advertising is about making consumers aware of a product or service that they may use if they were aware of it. This seems reasonable and generally beneficial. Marketing is about using psychological techniques to manipulate consumers preferences such that they want to consume products and services that they oth…

Yeah, it's just too bad you're the only person in the world to define advertising and marketing that way, I guess? At least among people who know what they're talking about.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#188

Post by mixedCase »

tracker1 wrote: post #174
chowells wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin runs just fine on Firefox Android.

Too bad my experience is Firefox Android doesn't run just fine on its' own.

I've been using with greater success than Chrome for a long long time now. I also run HTTPS Everywhere on it.

Really, after using it for some time I can't see how people who have used a browser with plug-ins on the desktop can stand using one without them on mobile.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#189

Post by punee »

dredmorbius wrote: post #121
noodlio wrote: post #102

If all ad methods hypothetically disappeared, what would be the alternatives for businesses to promote their services and goods?

Funny you should ask.... If I'm looking for something to buy: 1. I'll search for it directly. In particular, I'm interested in solid reviews. This quite often means not giving much credence to review mills -- CNET, Yelp, etc., -- where the nature and intentions of reviewers are quite often suspect. Amazon have this problem as well, though to a very slightly lesser extent. 2. Map-based systems (OpenStreetMap, Google M…

It's quite telling, but by no means surprising on Hacker News, that you completely failed to address the question.

The question wasn't "What would you do if you were looking for something to buy".

The question is: "What would you do if you were a business and had something to sell?"

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#190

Post by punee »

nitwit005 wrote: post #169
kasey_junk wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major component to modern advertising is educating people that options exist. In the no advertising model things simply wither on the vine with no support to keep them going. Smart phones are an obvious example. They existed for ages before a powerful marketing company pushed them to the mainstream (plus the usability improvements). That sparked a technical revolution...

That imagines there's no other way of people being informed. People would simply subscribe to some sort of service that reviews things. As it is, newspapers and magazines have reviews of most of the items normal people care about.

Where is that service if it's so valuable?
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