171–179 of 179 posts
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This, along with Safari's 'stop-ad-tracking' feature released on WWDC17, will very probably kill the Internet ads business (the others). I would be surprised if stock prices of the ads networks don't plumage.
s/released/announced/ afaik
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Power is typically zero-sum. As Google gains effective monopoly power, Mozilla and others whose interests are more aligned with the public interest lose power. I could go on. Put simply, if nobody stops using other adblockers because of this, then nothing is directly a problem. The problems come when Google uses their power to do things like block adblockers in Chrome (as they already do on Android!) and other ramifi…
> as they already do on Android! This is exclusionary detailing, wouldn't you say? Chrome on Android doesn't have an extensions platform.
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I think that you are too naive and part of the problem why the Google has become so dominant. I actually installed an ad-blocker because I could not stand video ads (I would call it TV-cation of the Internet) and that was the easiest way to eliminate them. You argue that people can install another browser and use an ad-blocker with that. This is true for now (given reasonably motivated and knowledgeable users), but G…
I'm not disagreeing that this is possible, but I don't think jumping straight to such a nightmare scenario really does any good. The reason being is that they just don't go that far and it's suddenly seems okay in comparison to what "could" happen. More realistically, I think Google hurts other ad blockers and expands their oligarchic position in the ads space (especially on mobile).
I think that is the main problem of the mainstream thinking - inability to see how multiple independent trends can interact and create new realities.
I believe that blindness, even the forced one, to such realities is one of the greatest dangers that allows these realities to develop and take almost everyone by surprise - oh, we did not see it coming.
>The reason being is that they just don't go that far and it's suddenly seems okay in comparison to what "could" happen.
Perhaps two scenarios should be presented: a catastrophic one and a one single step in the wrong direction.
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I'm not disagreeing that this is possible, but I don't think jumping straight to such a nightmare scenario really does any good. The reason being is that they just don't go that far and it's suddenly seems okay in comparison to what "could" happen. More realistically, I think Google hurts other ad blockers and expands their oligarchic position in the ads space (especially on mobile).
> I'm not disagreeing that this is possible, but I don't think jumping straight to such a nightmare scenario really does any good. Ten years ago I thought that the level of tracking and corporate surveillance we see today was a nightmare scenario. I was clearly an optimist. Don't be me.
I'm on Firefox all the time and it's a RAM saver ;)
Full disclosure: I'm not related to Mozilla in any way but definitely a fanboy.
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> as they already do on Android! This is exclusionary detailing, wouldn't you say? Chrome on Android doesn't have an extensions platform.
Which means that's an understatement of how bad the problem is.
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> as they already do on Android! This is exclusionary detailing, wouldn't you say? Chrome on Android doesn't have an extensions platform.
That doesn't stop you from using a local proxy to filter ad network traffic, like what Adblock Plus does on android. Adblock Plus was removed from the play store in 2013 [0]. That being said there are other browsers on android that either support extensions (like firefox) or have an adblocker built in. [0]: https://adblockplus.org/blog/adblock-plus-for-android-remove...
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No, it isn't monopolistic. Look at ad prices continuously going down. "Monopoly" isn't a buzz word that you throw around randomly. It doesn't even have to do necessarily with market share or control or the market. There is no monopoly on the ad space, not by very, very far.
Microsoft was brought up on anti-trust charges because it packaged a browser with its operating system. Google controls the majority of ads on extended networks, it controls almost all publisher ads (even Microsoft network sites run Google ads.) If publishers have no where to go but Google, how is that not a monopoly? Ignore search, ignore Facebook and Twitter, those are first party. Google has 0 competition on exten…
You're not getting the point: extended network sites is not an isolated product. It exists as a part of a large sub-segment (online ads) which part of an even larger market (ads).
You can take a single sub-sub-segment and call it a monopoly. Its doesn't matter if Coke had 95% of the colas market (it does in several countries), it isn't a monopoly, because it competes with thousands of other drinks.
And you can't just look at market share, you need to look at prices. CPMs are falling dramatically across the board, which is completely incompatible with a monopoly.
There is the economical definition of a monopoly, and then there's the layman definition, which means whatever you want to mean.
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Sure and there'll be tons of die hards like you who won't stop using blockers. This still makes a lot of sense if it keeps new people from installing a 3rd party blanket ad blocker and eating into ad revenue from Google's own platform.
Based on the article, I didn't see any evidence they are shutting down chrome add-ons. I'm really lost on why people are getting the impression of that. When Google made Google+, they didn't block you from visiting Facebook, why would this be different