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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

#91

Post by team_doom »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #78
team_doom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the wrong way to approach this. You're essentially pirating content now. If you don't like the ads, stop using the site. It's that simple. To take it a step farther, send an email to customer service explaining WHY you're no longer using the site. This sends a much stronger message to them about what makes you unhappy with the service they provide.

Do you ever listen to the radio or live tv? And if so do you feel an obligation to not switch channels when there are ads playing? Such utter nonsense.

I do, actually. I listen to commercials on the radio all the time. It's how they pay for the content I'm listening to and they are often targeted enough that I hear about a business/offer that is pertinent to me. I don't think it's "utter nonsense". I feel like I'm supporting the continued existence of something that I care enough about to listen to. If they can't monetize the service, how can it be expected to continue? Is there no cognitive dissonance for you when you consume something without paying for it? This is the entitlement I referred to in another comment. I don't have cable, so no TV ads.

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

#92

Post by daemin »

bluejekyll wrote: post #79
inanutshellus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually like seeing ads (though I wish they weren't coming from omniscient ad networks and were instead coming from the sites I was visiting). Content providers get money, I get free content. Nice. HTML5 Video Ads are what finally switched me to ad blockers. When people served static images and Adobe Flash videos, I could just disable auto-play of Flash, and voila, I see ads, but don't get obnoxious videos on rand…

Safari at least added a disable all sound on a tab button. They should probably add or include video as an option too.

Yeah, Firefox has a mute tab button in each tab, but it still annoys me when all of a sudden I get some sound playing in the background for no reason.

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

#93

Post by daemin »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #9
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…

I both make a small amount of money from ads and also use AdBlocker. The thing is, I don't mind ads. The problem is that the people providing content should own and manage what ads they show me. This idea of allocating page space and then bidding it off? It only leads to click fraud, malware, and all sorts of other problems. Instead, write things I find useful, then provide me links -- text links -- to ways I might c…

You mean like in some of those fancy fashion magazines where the ads are actually part of the content that people buy.

Yes that would be good for websites to do, but it also requires a dedicated ad department to organise it all, and consumers of that content that would want to buy the goods that are being sold.

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

#94

Post by tomp »

jamespo wrote: post #64
tomp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're essentially pirating content now. Earlier, the websites were "pirating" his/her device & browser.

How did they do that, put a rootkit on his machine forcing all hits to them?

No, just JavaScript that I never asked for and don't want to run.

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

#95

Post by team_doom »

msandford wrote: post #36
team_doom wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't disagree with the fact that ads could be better served more safely and more securely. And I agree that the experience could be better. That's where my comment about writing an email to explain ones unhappiness with the user experience comes in. I work in information security and we do see a lot of malware infections from compromised ad servers.

The idea of a website serving ads themselves, instead of relying on a call to an ad network, is good. It means big changes to how advertising works though. The advertisers would have to give customers the ads for them to embed into the page and would need some sort of guarantee that the customer wouldn't change the ads and would pull them down when it was time to do so. I can't think of a way to check this stuff automatically that doesn't involve a call to an advertisers server, which is the whole problem to begin with.

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

#96

Post by snassar »

team_doom wrote: post #91
InclinedPlane wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever listen to the radio or live tv? And if so do you feel an obligation to not switch channels when there are ads playing? Such utter nonsense.

I do, actually. I listen to commercials on the radio all the time. It's how they pay for the content I'm listening to and they are often targeted enough that I hear about a business/offer that is pertinent to me. I don't think it's "utter nonsense". I feel like I'm supporting the continued existence of something that I care enough about to listen to. If they can't monetize the service, how can it be expected to conti…

Do you see no difference between an advertisement on a website and an advertisement on TV or radio?

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

#97

Post by vijayr »

nulbyte wrote: post #55
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…

I believe you hit the nail on the head: greed. This was my tipping point. When sites got so greedy that they stopped caring if anyone read their content, I stopped caring if they got paid for obtrusive ads. Even Google has designed some horrendous ads, especially the Nexus ad that grabs swipes on mobile, keeping you from scrolling past it. If the ads stuck to the meatverse-equivalent style of static but attractive, I…

The problem with greed is that it only takes a handful of players to ruin it for everyone. There are still good sites providing quality content and monetizing it responsibly and decently with ads - they will also get hit by ad blockers, as most users would likely block all ads (and we can't blame them for it)

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

#98

Post by tremon »

chopin wrote: post #2

Malware is the #1 reason for me to use ad-blocking...

For me, distraction is the #1 reason. I started blocking ads as soon as it was possible (almost 15 years ago I guess), having been fed up with animated gifs. Next on my list was Flashblock, again because of distraction first. By then I had already permanently muted my browser.

I started blocking javascript because my pc was getting old and sites just ran much smoother without it. First using the global "block javascript" flag, and when too many sites became unusable I switched to NoScript and now RequestPolicy.

The tracking and security concerns are secondary to me; usability was my motivator. But by now, I'm so used to it, I never browse without protection. I literally feel dirty when I have to use IE or any other bare browser.

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

#99

Post by yoo1I »

team_doom wrote: post #91
InclinedPlane wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever listen to the radio or live tv? And if so do you feel an obligation to not switch channels when there are ads playing? Such utter nonsense.

I do, actually. I listen to commercials on the radio all the time. It's how they pay for the content I'm listening to and they are often targeted enough that I hear about a business/offer that is pertinent to me. I don't think it's "utter nonsense". I feel like I'm supporting the continued existence of something that I care enough about to listen to. If they can't monetize the service, how can it be expected to conti…

There's the difference: you seem to be getting something out of the ads. For me it's 100% irrelevant. If I need something I will go look for it. If what I need is so special that it can't be found by an internet search, rest assured no-one would make an ad for it.

I am not sure why you use the term "cognitive dissonance" for referring to a situation where I consume without paying for something, and I don't feel entitled either. It feels very sonant to read clean websites.

If someone chooses to provide a resource it's their issue to figure out how to make it profitable. Trying to set up a fake moral pressure which requires me to listen to/watch mundane, uninspiring bullshit that I do not care about, that wouldn't make them any money from me anyhow, is kind of a strange way to go through life. If I went to your website for it's great content, why do you want to force me to look at something else instead? My brain resources are too valuable to be used to process to hear someone's lies about their products.

In essence you want me to pay for your things by quite literally wasting my time.

How did that become a thing, I wonder ...

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

#100

Post by CuriouslyC »

People question how we'll support content without ads, but I have to take a step back and wonder - is content that needs to be supported really that valuable? Might the world be a better place without it?

People who are passionate about the subject they are writing on are going to publish regardless of ad revenue, assuming they get hits (writing stuff nobody reads is a fast track to burnout). Right now, in many cases these people are being crowded out by well SEO'd content mills. If the advertising dollars dry up, the content mills will die off, and that ecological niche will be freed up to be filled by people with passion.

I for one welcome the idea of a return to a genuine internet, where everything isn't about monetization. The amount of content may go down, but the quality will almost certainly go way up, and there will be that much less garbage to wade through.

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