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We’re dropping Google Ads

groundup.org.za

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Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#111

Post by mark_l_watson »

ajdlinux wrote: post #90
mark_l_watson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started subscribing and paying for Blendle about a month ago. Their service shows me article summaries from otherwise expensive publications like The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Economist, etc. I can view a full article from $0.10 to about $0.50 without advertisements. I spend a little over a dollar a week and I get to occasionally read articles from sources that are expensive to buy a full sub…

I've just started trialing Blendle, it looks very promising although the prices feel slightly higher than I'd be happy with and I'm not sure how I feel about the browsing/article discovery interface. But in principle I'm a huge fan of micropayments for journalism, so I'm going to keep using it for a while and see how it goes!

I tend to only read a few articles a week on Blendle so itt is not expensive, butt yes, for a 'news junkie' who reads news everyday it could get expensive.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#112

Post by AceJohnny2 »

gruez wrote: post #25
dheera wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

>Or invent a system by which 10% of the ad revenue gets cut out to the end user. That will incentivize people to unblock ads. microsoft tried that with bing rewards. i suspect it's not working well because i only heard of it in the context of botting it to get free money. the advertiser wants to spend as little money to gain as many sales, whereas the viewer (and blackhats) want to get as much money as possible. the…

And Google tried that with Google Contributor [1], which they shut down mid-January, promising a replacement.

I was on that program, paying $10 a month. They refunded anything that was left over. IIRC think they habitually refunded $5+. They also showed stats, and IIRC the websites I frequented the most frequently (Ars Technica, multiple times a day), still received only pennies. That's how cheap ads are.

I started being a subscriber to some of those websites after.

Despite teasing a Contributor replacement "early 2017", nothing has been announced yet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#113

Post by visarga »

oh_sigh wrote: post #89
paulcole wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society has many unwritten agreements. You don't like ads, I get it. You take without compensating because you want to. Don't just shrug and say, "no notice was posted." Own it. Say, "I felt like taking this so I took it."

Ads subsidize my ride to work(MTA ads in NYC). Am I breaking an unwritten agreement by not looking at those ads, and reading my book instead?

No, only if you go to the toilet during ad break while watching TV. That has been deemed theft. /s

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#114

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

graycat wrote: post #84
phantom_oracle wrote: post #12

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

Okay, question on ad blockers: So far I have not tried to use one. And my Web site for my startup, to be ad supported, has not gone live yet. But, what if: What if my Web server sends the actual ads, as JPG, GIF, WEBM, etc. files instead of just URLs to ad servers at some ad network? Then will an ad blocker still work?

The adblocker can block download of easily identifiable URLs, so if your images look like http://my.coolwebsite.com/ad/jdhe73yd.jpg, the adblocker will refuse anything from http://my.coolwebsite.com/ad/ or similar.

Also, it can stop rendering, so if your ad has a custom CSS class, element name, etc then it will refuse to render that element (and children) even if it downloads the image.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#115

Post by visarga »

x0x0 wrote: post #65
shawkinaw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to feel that way, and still have absolutely no problem with ads in and of themselves. But they are the ones who breached ethics and morals by tracking me around the web, tracking my search queries, running all sorts of terrible JavaScript, and generally being dicks. So I don't feel bad anymore.

Doesn't stop you from consuming their content though?

It used to be the case that all content was Hollywood or newspaper created. But now, 99% of the content I am using is discussion threads such as this one, Wiki articles, arXiv papers and blogs.

From the people, to the people! I don't even need movies and articles - well, I still keep a 1% interest in them, but that's all. I am sorry about them but they are so derivative and dishonest at times that I can't watch them any more.

How many times did you find more value in YC comments than the linked article?

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#116

Post by kalmari »

graycat wrote: post #84
phantom_oracle wrote: post #12

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

Okay, question on ad blockers: So far I have not tried to use one. And my Web site for my startup, to be ad supported, has not gone live yet. But, what if: What if my Web server sends the actual ads, as JPG, GIF, WEBM, etc. files instead of just URLs to ad servers at some ad network? Then will an ad blocker still work?

those are embeded most adblockers do not block those.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#117

Post by ploxiln »

jsz0 wrote: post #103
phantom_oracle wrote: post #12

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

> Then you see all those shitty ads Still somewhat better than creepy targeted advertising. I bought a new garbage can a few weeks ago now many sites are full of ads for garbage cans. Although this may be one example where the targeting is working. Most of the sites showing those ads are garbage.

This example is brought up all the time - "I just bought something which I buy every few years at most, and now I'm getting ads for it after I bought it".

Obviously it's usually completely ineffective. BUT I think it might make a purchase correlation score go up. Imagine that no human working for the company buying the ads is fully understanding what the correlation score means, and they are effectively using or subscribing to a machine learning model that is trying to increase the correlation score. And they're seeing the score go up.

I'm no expert in the ad targeting ecosystem, and I'm sure I'll be told that's not what it does. But I'm more familiar with systems software, databases, distributed services and such, and I've seen many things that didn't really do what they were supposed to do. It just takes a lot of smarts and a lot of focus, such as Aphyr does with distributed databases, to show that they don't actually do what they claim, due to some mundane bugs or subtle design flaws.

I think there's a good chance that the complex ad targeting ecosystem is just fooling advertisers into thinking it works, without actually working.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#118

Post by gregable »

A large problem here is that ads only support one type of content: low-cost and large-audience.

Content ads, more or less, offer a fixed amount per impression. Sure, you might get a higher ad price for certain audiences than others, but this is related to topic, not the quality or cost of content.

If you only make a fixed amount per impression, the only business model low-cost content targeting a large audience. High quality (aka high cost) content, with a narrow interest audience needs a different model.

That different model is probably charging your reader. However, the moment you set up a paywall, the content disappears. Search engines will not suggest the content, feed readers can't access it, suggestion interfaces won't suggest it, etc. The content might as well not exist.

We don't need micropayments. We need a model where paywall content can be discovered. Systems whereby paywall content can be accessed by aggregators who then can suggest/search/deliver the content, but will not give the content to users without payment.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#119

Post by Crito »

dheera wrote: post #20
phantom_oracle wrote: post #12

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

When I was a kid, my dad used to rip the advertisements out of magazines as soon as they came in the mail. That's a practice I've carried on, despite getting far few magazines these days... My family also used to mute the advertisements on TV, though I don't think any of us still watch it.

So when I see people claiming that adblockers are immoral, it always gives me a good chuckle. Is ripping the ads out of a magazine immoral too? Is the mute button on my remote a ethnical crime against poor hapless television companies?

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#120

Post by cpeterso »

phantom_oracle wrote: post #12

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

I don't mind ads; I just don't want clickbait crap about shocking celebrity photos and "deep searches" for local singles.

So I created a minimal blocklist for the worst clickbait (mostly Outbrain and Taboola): https://github.com/cpeterso/clickbait-blocklist/

The list is compatible with uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus. If you know of any other bad clickbait ad networks, please let me know! As the article describes, I now see clickbait ads from Google that are almost as bad, but I'm not quite ready to block all Google ads in what was supposed to be a minimal blocklist.

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