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Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#151

Post by sleepychu »

rlidwka wrote: post #92
jerf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that argument is aging fast; it dates from before ad blockers were the increasingly big deal they are now. You've got two basic choices with a user who has demonstrated their passion to remove ads, spend money to play an arms-game race with the ad blockers to pound through their defenses, or directly make money from that passion, possibly an order-of-magnitude more money per user. Is it really so obvious that…

There is another basic choice: write a code that is intentionally incompatible with ad blockers. They can name an important navigation element "ad", so ad blocker will hide it for example. Then, when a bunch of users start complaining that the website does not work, point out that it's all ad blocker's fault (because without it everything works). I've seen a few precedents already.

I'm happy to continue to modify my ad blocker until it allows me to use enough of facebook to be happy. How I choose to render the data Facebook sends me, is up to me.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#152

Post by beagle3 »

epmatsw wrote: post #132

It's really interesting to me how strongly people dislike actions like this and the "Please turn off your adblock" thing. If this were a physical store, it's the equivalent of you taking something and the owner saying "hey man, that's not free, this is how I make a living". It seems like the right response would be "Oh wow, sorry, I won't take that any more", not "Go away, you're bothering me, and I'm going to keep t…

It's more like "don't come in to use the AC and shade in the store if you're not going to buy anything". I am not making an opinion on the practice, only on your analogy.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#153

Post by sdoering »

balabaster wrote: post #80
chollida1 wrote: post #24

> Facebook’s change will open up more online ad space for it to sell, although Mr. Bosworth said that wasn’t the motivation for the move. Facebook now garners 84% of its advertising revenue from mobile devices, which are less susceptible to ad blocking than desktop devices. Something about it being difficult for a man to understand something when his salary depends on it seems appropriate here. This is what happens w…

I only have a sample size of one (me), but I left a couple of years ago and you're not getting me back with an attitude like this... I can't imagine I'm the only one, however, I'm also willing to bet that you're right often enough for this tactic to increase profits.

It does - at least in the short term. The network effect can also work in the opposite direction.

And it hopefully does.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#154

Post by dragonwriter »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #87
douche wrote: post #26

I already have a whole set of CSS rules I apply to Facebook now, just to make their UI less awful, remove the massive amounts of crud I never want to see, and resize the few things that I do want to see up from their stock postage-stamp sizes. Blocking .ad-unit or #pagesYouDontCareAbout is easy.

With Facebook they can serve ads as if they were a regular story, there wouldn't be anything structural, not even image names/sizes, to go on then.

> With Facebook they can serve ads as if they were a regular story

With Facebook's paid reach, "regular stories" are often paid ads to start with.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#155

Post by denzil_correa »

ultramancool wrote: post #63
lopatin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Why do you block FB ads? I wouldn't say that FB ads are any more disguised as content as, say, newspaper ads. And follow up: If FB decided to shut down some features to ad-blocking users, do you think that would be unfair?

> If FB decided to shut down some features to ad-blocking users, do you think that would be unfair? I think "they're welcome to try" is exactly the right response here. Nothing is "fair" or "unfair", at least not in a way that advertisers or ad blockers care about. No matter what they do it's entirely possible to trick their scripts into believing I'm displaying ads, because they run not on facebook's servers but on…

> No matter what they do it's entirely possible to trick their scripts into believing I'm displaying ads

I hope this is true. I still think Facebook can do much more devious things like having posts on your news feeds from friends which look like posts but are ads. Kind of like native advertising.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#156

Post by mikeash »

epmatsw wrote: post #132

It's really interesting to me how strongly people dislike actions like this and the "Please turn off your adblock" thing. If this were a physical store, it's the equivalent of you taking something and the owner saying "hey man, that's not free, this is how I make a living". It seems like the right response would be "Oh wow, sorry, I won't take that any more", not "Go away, you're bothering me, and I'm going to keep t…

Taking something from a store without paying is theft. Loading a subset of the resources on a web site isn't.

It's more like a "store" owner who makes his products free and supports it by selling advertising on the ceiling. Then complains when people realize they can avoid the obnoxious advertising by staring at the floor.

You have a right to protect your property but you have no right to protect your business model. Blocking ads has nothing to do with property rights, it's just a business model thing.

If these companies really wanted to force people to view ads, they'd make users sign a contract agreeing to do so. But of course that would scare everybody off. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#157

Post by douche »

epmatsw wrote: post #132

It's really interesting to me how strongly people dislike actions like this and the "Please turn off your adblock" thing. If this were a physical store, it's the equivalent of you taking something and the owner saying "hey man, that's not free, this is how I make a living". It seems like the right response would be "Oh wow, sorry, I won't take that any more", not "Go away, you're bothering me, and I'm going to keep t…

No, it's more like those terrible flyers you get in the mail and shoved under your door, except you have to pay the postage on them.

Don't suck up my bandwidth on your crappy ads.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#158

Post by collyw »

cgriswald wrote: post #142
collyw wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does Facebook receive for the ads they display on my page? If they are making $10 dollars a year, then charge me $10. Up to me. I can get it for free with ads, or pay without.

Facebook might even be okay with that, because they'll be making the same amount of $$ and could potentially charge you a premium. But it will be hard for Facebook to sell it's advertising customers on a reduced pool of eyeballs; and I bet statistically people willing to pony up $10 to avoid ads are also likely to buy the products advertised on Facebook ( i.e., I think people like you or I and many others on this sit…

Fair point.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#159

Post by ddalex »

tomcart wrote: post #34

I'm a little surprised they would announce this as a thing they will do in the future, rather than something they've already succeeded in doing. Either they're arrogant about their ability to implement this (which may be well founded), or they're really doing it to assure less savvy advertisers that they're trying as hard as they can...

Rules of acquisition 392: Never announce that you intend to do something until you already did it. Asking for forgiveness is better than asking for permission.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#160

Post by mgbmtl »

denzil_correa wrote: post #150
deanCommie wrote: post #7

They are welcome to try. And I am welcome to try harder to block them. As long as they don't try to force some sort of legislation on how people can use their internet connection, and their internet browser to fetch and display content, there's no problem. The real problem is Facebook is already full of advertising disguised as content. From sponsored posts to content from things you "like". So I'm kind of surprised…

> They are welcome to try. And I am welcome to try harder to block them. Technically, Facebook could insert news feed ads like a post from one of your friend (assume that the friend has liked some page or organization). It could be tough to distinguish between ads and posts much like native advertising.

Ads already affect the experience significantly, this would do so even more.

(not that I use Facebook, but Tumblr for example, has extremely annoying repetitive offensive ads)

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