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Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

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Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#31

Post by cm2187 »

sokoloff wrote: post #25
cm2187 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might agree that preventing ads from displaying is immoral but tracking users across websites is even more immoral. And since I cannot rely on websites to behave, ad-blockers are actually re-introducing morality into browsing by blocking the tracking.

They block one vector of tracking. They don't block CDN-based tracking: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/30/a-new-type-of-trackin... (note the juxtaposition of "new" and "2010")

Looks like akamai needs to be added to my blockers list.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#32

Post by echelon »

arjie wrote: post #29
karterk wrote: post #5

For a very long time, I did not want to use ad blockers. I have used ads in the past to monetize some of my own projects, and I really did not want to stab the creators of quality content. However, last week I finally reversed my decision and started using ad blockers. Why? Frankly, many sites are just greedy. Banners were ugly enough (and I tolerated them) but many sites these days show ads that cover the content, a…

And which are these websites that are using these dirty tricks?

Almost 70% of the websites linked from Reddit that I click through. Many links from HN are also guilty of this.

When I'm on mobile, I frequently click on ads by mistake when I'm trying to scroll. It's unintentional on my part, but I feel the web developers and ad networks are colluding to make this happen.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#33

Post by officialchicken »

jld89 wrote: post #3

Trackers are horrible. I don't want anyone to know what I am doing what sites I am visiting etc... What gives them the right to track? Besides of imposing banners to my face? They got what was coming to them. I am glad that the EFF is giving us tools to fight back. Consider donating to them!

Please remember to include a link whenever you mention the EFF! https://supporters.eff.org/donate

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#35

Post by takno »

edent wrote: post #22
imgabe wrote: post #19

It would be interesting to see if someone could endow an independent publication with enough money to keep it going, then put quality ad-free journalism behind a paywall. I'm thinking it would be something like "B Corporation". Not exactly a charity, but not necessarily trying to maximize profit either. Charge a high monthly price, maybe $50/month for immediate access to new articles, but after 1 month everything bec…

The Scott Trust is the main financial backer for The Guardian - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of?

The Scott Trust isn't exactly a large endowment that can provide the news using the returns from investments. It's an independent ownership model which has enough cash reserves to cushion the Guardian for a while why they get back into profit. If they don't crack the problem of how to make money from the internet they are gone just the same as everybody else.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#36

Post by msandford »

team_doom wrote: post #27
cm2187 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually end up doing that with websites that block browsers with ad-blockers from viewing the content. It takes a while to change my habits but when they are changed there is no coming back to these sites.

To me that comes off as "Hey, I'm angry you won't let me view your content without paying for it anymore". Obviously in this case paying for it is viewing/watching ads. Not trying to get high and mighty with anyone. The whole ad-block culture just screams entitlement to me and it bothers me a lot.

Who is entitled? People who want to view content and will make what they feel is a reasonable bargain to do so, or people who want to sell ads and will make unreasonable bargains to do so?

If the initial html that loaded on the page also had the ads in it, it'd be much harder to block them and also make the experience of seeing those ads much less unpleasant.

As it stands what people are doing is loading the initial html and saying "no thanks" to all of the follow-on stuff.

There's two sides to every story.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#37

Post by Spooky23 »

mahranch wrote: post #15

Black and white thinking. Content creators still need to get paid. I'd be quite upset if my favorite sites had to shut down due to the rise of ad blocking and non-viable alternatives to ads (like "subscriptions", etc...)

Content creator business models are not my problem. If they want to get paid, they need to figure that out.

By globalizing their reach, most content shops entered into a race to the bottom where they cannot win. That's why you have these tiers of auctions for inventory that slide down the food chain in terms of quality as the price falls.

Traditionally, successful media has been local, local, local in scope. That remains true, although everything is being reshuffled.

Media outlets that remain alive have some sort of scope limitation that makes their ad inventory more valuable and reduces their exposure/dependency to Facebook.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#38

Post by FussyZeus »

karterk wrote: post #5

For a very long time, I did not want to use ad blockers. I have used ads in the past to monetize some of my own projects, and I really did not want to stab the creators of quality content. However, last week I finally reversed my decision and started using ad blockers. Why? Frankly, many sites are just greedy. Banners were ugly enough (and I tolerated them) but many sites these days show ads that cover the content, a…

The last three viral infections I've had on my PC's have come from advertisements on websites. I generally will whitelist a select few websites that I trust to not destroy my computer and to not run irritating ads, but at the end of the day this is my damn computer, not the ad companies. If I don't feel like running their code then I can make my machine not do that and there isn't jack they can do about it.

Oh no I can't read about the Model 3 on New York Times? Then I'll go read about it on LA Times, or Huffington Post, or any one of the ten thousand other news sources no doubt covering it.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#39

Post by cm2187 »

team_doom wrote: post #27
cm2187 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually end up doing that with websites that block browsers with ad-blockers from viewing the content. It takes a while to change my habits but when they are changed there is no coming back to these sites.

To me that comes off as "Hey, I'm angry you won't let me view your content without paying for it anymore". Obviously in this case paying for it is viewing/watching ads. Not trying to get high and mighty with anyone. The whole ad-block culture just screams entitlement to me and it bothers me a lot.

I am not angry. The authors of the website control their content. If they want to block ad blocking browsers so be it. But my reaction to it is to go somewhere else, not to embrace being tracked all over the web.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#40

Post by fucking_tragedy »

mahranch wrote: post #15

Black and white thinking. Content creators still need to get paid. I'd be quite upset if my favorite sites had to shut down due to the rise of ad blocking and non-viable alternatives to ads (like "subscriptions", etc...)

Black and white thinking. Content creators can still get paid. They just need to figure out a business model that doesn't hijack my browsing session, use the limited mobile data I'm allotted and pay for each month to serve unwanted content, drain my battery, eat my CPU, track my reading/surfing/porn habits and potentially run malicious code on my machines.
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