Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker • Hacker News Board

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#71

Post by stevesearer » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

mars4rp wrote: post #39

I hate Ads as much as next guy, but what will be the future of the internet without the Ads? where the revenue comes from? do we have to pay for every site that we use? I prefer a free content internet with reasonable amount of ads!!

As a publisher, even I find myself using ad blockers on certain websites that are totally unusable without them.

One problem is that most sites seem to think of advertising as adding value for themselves and the advertiser. Advertising can and should actually add value for readers with a good example being the job listings here on HN.

I think some % of publishers will have to try and adopt better advertising practices (plus maybe offer some additional paid features), and those that do will be able to survive.

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#72

Post by eistrati » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

Aldo_MX wrote: post #62

eistrati wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you use LA Times if we'd convince them to implement the following user experience: https://demo.adtechmedia.io/atm-core/nytimes/www.nytimes.com... NOTE: Above article is from NY Times and is ONLY for demo purposes :)

I would rather read the article first, and leave a tip if the article was noteworthy.

Fair point, but it's not a restaurant and educating readers this etiquette would be really tough. How about pay for reading and refund if you think it's not worth your money? Would you do that?

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#73

Post by coldpie » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

phhlho wrote: post #34

Now if only there was a feature on ad blockers that blocked all the crummy youtube videos my daughter watches that are effectively 20 minute ads of people playing with toys.

You are the ad blocker! But really don't worry, it's nothing new. The 80s and 90s were filled with advertisements-as-TV-shows.

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#74

Post by Houshalter » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

TACIXAT wrote: post #5

Everyone should install Millennials to Snake People. It's a great addon that makes the internet way better. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to-sna...

What's the alternative term you suggest? "People reaching young adulthood around the year 2000" seems a bit verbose.

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#75

Post by msbarnett » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

zorked wrote: post #21

dice wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what is an "Old Millenial"? Someone currently in their early-to-mid 30s. End of Gen X, beginning of Millennials.

What happened to Gen Y. Not catchy enough?

Yeah. "Millennial" is the catchier brand name for what was at one point being called "Gen Y". It's essentially a born on or after 1980 catchall

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#76

Post by _rpd » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

stevesearer wrote: post #41

ryandvm wrote: post #24

Ad blocking is a textbook case of "prisoners' dilemma". And as someone that uses an ad blocker, I find the increasing popularity of ad blockers unnerving.

This is why I self-host my advertising and try to make them as high quality and relevant as possible (no animation, popups, etc). I have no idea if the concept could be replicated to other content verticals, but it has worked well for me.

Thank you. I really hope that you set the trend.

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#77

Post by forgottenpass » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #55

I browse most of the time without extensions other than a cookie editor, since I've encountered a number of weird bugs in my company's own product that turned out not to be bugs but weird interactions with browser extensions I was running. I also read a lot of news articles both on big sites like the WSJ and whatever regional news outlets turn up in my news searches. That is to say that ad networks should (presumably…

it's that worst of them are aggressively misaligned with my interests and with the interests of anyone who's not a total fucking rube.

It makes sense that so many are targeted at rubes. Who else do you think are actually clicking ads?

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#78

Post by grive » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #24

Ad blocking is a textbook case of "prisoners' dilemma". And as someone that uses an ad blocker, I find the increasing popularity of ad blockers unnerving.

That's assuming losing the content creators serving ads would be a loss for internet users.

Given that there exist people that hold this opinion, their own view about using an ad blocker is not at all in the same context than in the prisoners dilemma.

Thus the dilemma is biased, to an extent directly proportional to the number of people holding this opinion.

If it is biased, the standard game theory analysis does not apply directly. i.e. the best move might not be to suffer ads for no long term gain.

More prosaically, I do not care in the slightest if people living in selling ads disappeared completely from internet. They are a cancer, ads are a cancer to the utopia that internet was for a short time.

We need come back to this state. We will, actually, by empowering users.

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#79

Post by zeveb » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #28

jobu wrote: post #20

As the most technical person in my network of friends and family I'm often the one they go to for computer help. For years one of the first things I do if I touch their computers is install uBlock. Lately a couple of them have gotten new computers and mentioned that they think it came with a virus because there ads everywhere on the internet.

I hope you inform them before installing it. If someone installed something that's tampering with my browsing experience without telling me I would be pretty mad.

Removing ads isn't really tampering though: it's inarguably improving.

If someone makes my life immeasurably better without telling me, I'm thankful.

Re: Two Out of Three Young Millennials Now Use an Ad Blocker

#80

Post by eistrati » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

jzymbaluk wrote: post #26

eistrati wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you use LA Times if we'd convince them to implement the following user experience: https://demo.adtechmedia.io/atm-core/nytimes/www.nytimes.com... NOTE: Above article is from NY Times and is ONLY for demo purposes :)

I thought when I first saw that page that it could be defeated with a simple inspect element, but it looks like when the atm-blurry is removed from the paragraph id's that the paragraphs themselves were all gibberish! I wonder if the text is randomly generated or if it's some kind of text-cypher. Either way, this type of paywall experience is significantly less annoying than a pop-up, but I personally would still be…

Cool feedback. Thank you! This approach doesn't get you to subscription (although technically it could), but rather allow you to read without unblocking or whitelisting adblockers, and without subscribing or sharing your personal data.