We’re dropping Google Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#171

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 5:54 AM UTC

visarga wrote: post #115

x0x0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#172

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 5:55 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #60

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…

Unfortunately the situation has devolved into a kind of arms race where content providers need to recover costs via advertising more aggressively because more people are "skipping"/blocking the ads. Those "more people" include me because some of it has become unbearable as well as malicious. That said, I do maintain that a site owner has the right to try to extract revenue from their enterprise and to a degree as vis…

I tend to think framing in terms of (legal or moral) rights isn't the best argument. The debate needs to be about utility and interests.

People seem to think they exist in a vacuum. But now everyone is using ad blockers, and the dynamics have devolved to resemble the Greek tax system: "I'm not paying those taxes, they are too high" -> "We're not getting enough revenue, need to lower costs" -> "Why should I pay for the shitty service the government provides?" -> "We need to raise taxes, or close the schools" ->...

Stuff that would help:

– Publishers need to get their act together and offer netflix/spotify-style access

– Adtech needs a quality revolution

– Ad blockers need to evolve to do "smart blocking", where the tuple of (user/publisher/article/ad network/ad client/network condition) determines if an ad should be blocked, with a build-in mechanism to reward both quality content (by being more forgiving in the other dimensions) and quality ads (in terms of technology/security/interest to the user/intrusiveness)

– Users need to welcome such experiments with a modicum of goodwill and good faith, and a renewed willingness to differentiate. Right now, journalists cry themselves to sleep because even if you're just doing the crosswords at a French magazine, someone will try to stab you with your own pencil, yelling something about "Iraq" and "WMDs".

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#173

Post by Confusion » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 5:57 AM UTC

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…

  I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish.

No you don't. Just because something is technically possible, even easy, does not mean you are entitled to do so.

Some bytes you are not allowed to render them at all (and BTW, how did you get them?).

Some bytes may not be transformed into other bytes so you are able to render them (and BTW, how did you obtain the key?).

Some bytes may not be rendered in front of audiences, only for personal use.

In general: those bytes come with a copyright and a license agreement. They are my arrangement of bytes. I could easily include an explicit HTTP header saying that you may only render these bytes with unmodified browser brand X version Y.Z (or brand A version B, or ...). That that is currently unwritten in the HTTP response does not make it a non-existent agreement.

If you do something else, you violate my copyright over that arrangement of bytes.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#174

Post by bad_user » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 5:57 AM UTC

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #94

paulcole wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Legally I have no idea. But ethically/morally, I'd argue you don't. By visiting the site, you're entering into an agreement to exchange your ad views for content and you're breaking that agreement. Doesn't feel right to me.

> By visiting the site, you're entering into an agreement No. By replying to my browser, they're entering into an agreement to not waste my time, and give me lots of money. Oh, not that either? Hmm. Several sites detect that I'm using a malware blocker. I make no effort to obfuscate this. Some websites will ask me to turn it off, others will block me if I do not. That's fine - I've no obligation to them, they have no…

You can't block ads in Facebook's native mobile app.

Their communications are probably encrypted and their ads are probably served on the same connection as everything else. Which means that either now or in the future you won't be able to modify your /etc/hosts to solve this problem either (assuming you have a rooted phone or tablet of course).

The only option you'll have will be to crack Facebook's client and modify its behavior, which will be copyright infringement.

So how long do you think it will take for either (1) everybody moving to native apps where ads can't be blocked or (2) courts starting to rule ad blocking in browsers as being copyright infringement. After all, isn't opening a website just like installing an app? I don't see a difference really.

Don't get me wrong, I now have ad-blockers installed everywhere I can.

But let's not kid ourselves, you didn't have an implicit right for that content to begin with, by blocking ads you won't reward the good actors (i.e. GroundUp, featured in this article) and the future isn't bright.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#175

Post by ac29 » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 5:58 AM UTC

guelo wrote: post #125

ac29 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can view a full article from $0.10 to about $0.50 without advertisements. Thats at least an order of magnitude more expensive than its worth (to me), and 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more than they would make from ads. As an ad-blocking user who reads a lot of online content, I am in favor in the pay for content model, but it has to come at an appropriate price. A couple cents per reading minute is the high end of w…

Pre-internet you could buy the Sunday edition of your city's newspaper for 50 cents. This included dozens of in-depth articles. So yea, probably on the order of a penny per article. Though it was heavily subsidized by car dealer advertisements and the classifieds.

Yeah, thats pretty much it -- I remember print media too! Quality digital journalism from somewhere like NYT or WP (your opinions may vary) is worth $10/year/sub to me as an occasional reader. Unfortunately, they cost 10x that.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#176

Post by grogenaut » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 5:58 AM UTC

candiodari wrote: post #166

gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I wonder if there is another solution: All large websites switch to canvas rendering (like Netflix already does). This provides scrape, adblocker, content filter, ... protection. And of course it makes the internet completely unusable by anyone either blind or ... You might even create a startup that makes a javascript web browser, that allows all these companies to get consistent rendering across all web browsers, p…

It's called video or TV.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#177

Post by SFJulie » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

Filligree wrote: post #129

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

I used to work on that project. I'm sad that this happened, but mostly I'm annoyed at the public -- the problem turns out to be, people don't want to pay, not even that tiny amount. It's definitely coming back, though. Just not in quite the same form.

> people don't want to pay

cough

rich people don't pay, poor people pay for them.

That's the base of the free internet model.

With the Tier1 ISP billing at 95th percentile, and ISP almost illimited subscription and the close to flat rate, the contribution of small internet users in volume is the biggest in proportion of revenues.

And with people like google not paying for their transit, it means someone has to pay. Who?

Every internet users.

Internet & phone are in all developed country a must have for administrative & job related tasks. In every country it is when you are poor a substantial cost, as well as computers.

For those who are growingly poor internet is expansive.

But for the happy few with latest generation computers internet is comparatively cheap.

Being rich is the art of making the poor pay for you.

It is not people don't want to pay, the poor cannot pay, and they are the biggest population.

Me I have an adblock not because I don't want advertisement, it is because my 2007 computers cannot load a modern web page under 15 seconds with ads enabled.

The modern economy is based on the redistribution of the money of the poorest to the richest achieve by (lack) of regulations where the strongest wins.

So, my point is there is no free champagne, someone has to pay, but I don't see why it should be the one not being able to buy a bier.

And call a cat a cat: commercial internet has not yet found a fair sustainable model.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#178

Post by robryk » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

candiodari wrote: post #166

gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I wonder if there is another solution: All large websites switch to canvas rendering (like Netflix already does). This provides scrape, adblocker, content filter, ... protection. And of course it makes the internet completely unusable by anyone either blind or ... You might even create a startup that makes a javascript web browser, that allows all these companies to get consistent rendering across all web browsers, p…

And the arms race progresses to image-based ad blockers.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#179

Post by syrrim » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

guelo wrote: post #156

I applaud the advertisers. For a good long while racists were afraid or ashamed to push their racism too publicly. I liked that world, less hate and venom being spewed around poisoning the public sphere. But something snapped in the last few years and all the assholes have become loud and proud of their assholiness and they are celebrated and encouraged to be the biggest asshole they can possibly be. From what I can…

>from what I can tell this is from 4chan and gaming

I do not think so. Gaming and 4chan have been around a while, but this development is, as you say, relatively recent. I think there is some force that is new that promotes this curve.

One explanation is the widespread adoption and acceptance of the internet. Not so long ago, much fewer people had easy access to the web. Those that did often treated it with disdain, being mostly uninterested in it. At some point, people realized that the internet enabled them to freely speak their mind and associate with whomever they like to an unprecedented degree. Whereas before, people were limited by not wanting to distance themselves from friends and family, the internet enables them to lead a double life, with one part being a normal family man, the other being an internet pundit, freely spreading whichever vitriol they choose.

For these same reasons, I don't think this facet of internet culture will be so easily put away. To do so requires breaking some of the principles that make the internet what it is, primarily the ability to post whatever you want, even illegal content (copyright, cp). There is also the ability to join comunities from anywhere in the world, not just those local to you, that have some extension in real life. These functions are part of what people dreamed about when they fostered the internet and the web.

I think removing someone's advertising harms them to a point, but for many, it is a labor of love. They talk about the things they do because they truly enjoy those topics, and want to deseminate their views on it. If you cut off a revenue stream, they will continue posting, but perhaps scaled back due to needing a real job. Further, if their audience truly and unabashedly enjoys the content, they might be willing to fund the content maker through other channels, such as patreon or a similar websites. Cut off one revenue stream and two more pop up.

I don't know what the solution is. Cutting off advertising won't be enough. Destroying the internet as we know it might be needed, but I worry that this is going too far.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#180

Post by MichaelBurge » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 6:02 AM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #161

Crito wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a digital analogy for you. Suppose I: 1) Disable my ad blocker. 2) "Open Link in New Tab" 3) Wait for my browser to finish requesting that data from the server 4) Close the tab without ever looking at it. Is that unethical? Is it unethical for me to decide I don't want to read a webpage after requesting it? Should the "open in new tab" feature always force a tab switch against my wishes, so ensure I'm not ripp…

No, because you didn't enjoy the content either. Having the ads forced into your view is the cost of enjoying the content. So this is not a good analogy.

"Enjoy" is an interesting word to use there. That makes it akin to tipping, where if I read an article from the NY Times but don't think it was any good I don't have to see their ads.

I haven't seen anyone else make that argument, but I do enable ads on certain sites that I like so it's probably not wrong for a certain class of people.