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Is it worth supporting Firefox?

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Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#161

Post by juliangoldsmith »

627467 wrote: post #102
juliangoldsmith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google and Facebooks of the world sell the idea that they can personalize ads better than content producers and so everyone relies on their trackers and javascripts to build content business online. Publishers should know their audience better than ad servers. Part of the problem is that Google and Facebook actually can know the audience better than the content creator. A content creator only knows that the reader i…

I'd like to push back on "Google and Facebook actually can know the audience better than the content creator". This is the idea that has powered online businesses in the last 10 years, but I'd argue that just because conceptually Google can know me better than NYTimes the raise in ad blockers has shown that the ad distribution ecosystem doesn't really know their users that well. I must be living in a very different w…

I wouldn't attribute a rise in the use of ad blockers to Google or Facebook. It's more of a reaction to intrusive ads, the sort where a video expands to cover the content you're trying to view. Most people (that is, average users, rather than technologically-inclined ones) don't care that much about tracking.

As far as Google and Facebook pushing other advertising networks out of business, it's not that they're so effective that no other strategy is possible. It's more that they're effective enough, and so cheap that other networks can't compete.

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#162

Post by pritambaral »

Washuu wrote: post #155
pritambaral wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "Ad reinsertion", they mean the paid advertisement inclusion programmes of Adblock and Adblock Plus, which is opt-out and pretty shady in the first place. They think that Adblock and Adblock Plus don't exist on Firefox, and that people who use uBlock Origin on Firefox will not use uBlock Origin on Chrome too if they were somehow forced to use Chrome.

No, they are talking about services such as Instart. Javascript that runs on the page, detects the advertisements are being blocked, does a redirect through Instart's proxy to insert hard coded advertisements, and redirects back. Instart only works on Chrome.

I don't know where you're getting that — and I couldn't find any mention of Instart with a Ctrl-F on that page — but my source is this comment by the OP: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/8hha0r/is_it_worth_...

Besides, wouldn't something like that itself get blocked?

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#163

Post by sevensor »

chrisseaton wrote: post #123
sevensor wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is. I don't use ad blockers, but I also don't come back to websites where I've had a bad experience. If you do something hostile, like auto-play video, I'm gone and I'm not coming back. It makes for a fairly serene web browsing experience.

It literally says > Manager says that we should just discourage the users of Firefox (not optimizing for Firefox, and poor UI) from visiting our website as they bring a loss.

Ah, right you are. That's what I get for skimming. I suppose this is the same strategy as using all caps in 419 emails. Savvy users are a waste of effort, better to chase them off early.

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#164

Post by draebek »

scarface74 wrote: post #119
ppeetteerr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works for some, there is no doubt. I would believe that industry publications (transportation, forestry, etc.), and popular blogs, still make decent coin on selling print ads or sponsorships on the web. It's different to the original post's comments. They are looking at a public audience with ad blockers. Podcasts are a different affair altogether. I would love to see the numbers for those as I'm never in front of…

I would love to see the numbers for those as I'm never in front of my computer when I listen to a podcast and I don't remember the ads long enough to followup even when I'm interested in the product. It's not always about direct action, it's often about brand awareness. If you listen to a lot of podcasts, you'll know the first company you think about when you are in the market for: - Mattresses - Eyeglasses - Creatin…

Oh jeez, don't tell podcast advertisers, but I read your list, recognized that I've heard ads for every one of those products repeatedly across multiple podcasts, but I couldn't remember any of the brand names except for shaving—and I think that's only because I recently got annoyed when a YouTuber I subscribe to started to advertise for Dollar Shave Club (I assume that's who you refer to) at the beginning and end of his videos.

But maybe advertisers are happy enough if I remember their name when I eventually go looking for, say, eyeglasses and recognize their name in the search results.

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#165

Post by jiveturkey »

dhimes wrote: post #64
lakechfoma wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't we have content based ads that are non-intrusive like television and old print media? Yeah they still interject in the middle of content, but not with the same level of deceit as what some ads and sponsored links do on web media. I would disable my adblocker for sites that have ad campaigns not based on "gross obnoxiousness", privacy intrusions, and disregard for if an advertising party is serving up malwar…

Exactly. In the old days of the web, the ads were banners on sites that had related content. Just like newspapers. Clickable is actually good. Google had the idea to monetize search based on the hypothesis that if people are searching then they're looking to buy something. That didn't really work out: conversion rates are super low, even for free stuff- apparently less than direct mail. So things got more and more in…

Google didn’t invent it, as “had the idea” implies. they did invent the auction format. please tell google’s investors how it didn’t work out ...

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#166

Post by wvenable »

JepZ wrote: post #159
wvenable wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How hard is it to sell a fixed tag or any block of text within an article? Ad blockers will block that as well. Ad blockers will even block regular old HTML text on the page if it looks like an ad.

How does an ad look like?

Ad blockers will block images that are standard banner ad size. Maybe a text ad has "ad" somewhere in it's in CSS. We do only internally hosted ads and non-JS text sidebar ads and they're happily blocked by all major ad blockers. Doing everything "right" is no defense.

I'm not saying you can't make ads completely indistinguishable from content but I also don't think that's the solution that we want either.

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#167

Post by magduf »

sowbug wrote: post #92
syntheticnature wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on whether you share the links to others who run without ad blocking in place.

So the site's owners and employees should work for you for free because you're giving them exposure. https://www.reddit.com/r/choosingbeggars would enjoy discussing that proposition.

>So the site's owners and employees should work for you for free because you're giving them exposure.

Yes, they probably should. It works in the retail world. Shop owners are usually happy to have non-paying customers in their store, and restaurant owners usually happy to have low-paying customers (i.e. they don't buy very much), to make sure their establishment "looks busy". Having a store or eatery with few or no customers is bad: it "looks dead" and can either scare away customers, or just not bring as many in. People are social creatures; when they see a lot of people in a place, they think that it must be popular for a reason, so having some customers brings in more customers, and some fraction of those customers will pay (or pay a lot more than the average), making the establishment profitable overall.

Internet publishers need to figure out a better business model if they one they have isn't profitable enough for them. Other businesses have long recognized that not all customers are equally profitable, and some aren't profitable at all, but they figured out how to make things work.

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#168

Post by inetknght »

RestlessMind wrote: post #150
johnchristopher wrote: post #14

> I work for a major publisher. Ad-blockers are starting to hurt our revenue big time. No. What's hurting your edit:employer's revenue is years of blinking GIFs, auto-play videos and misleading links thrown between paragraphs. That's the first reason why I started using ad-blockers 15 years ago. The privacy issue is a recent thing. > We're doing a redesign now. Manager says that we should just discourage the users of…

> That's the first reason why I started using ad-blockers 15 years ago. The privacy issue is a recent thing. So you are on board with Google's acceptable ads initiative then? What I find frustrating is that people (in aggregate, not individually) keep moving goalposts. First, it's about annoying ads and how they will accept good ads. When presented with good ads, it becomes about tracking and how they will pay for th…

Are the goalposts really moving? Or are you talking to different people?

There are quite a lot of different people on the Earth with access to the internet and different perceptions of what ads are acceptable.

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#169

Post by jiveturkey »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #149
johnchristopher wrote: post #14

> I work for a major publisher. Ad-blockers are starting to hurt our revenue big time. No. What's hurting your edit:employer's revenue is years of blinking GIFs, auto-play videos and misleading links thrown between paragraphs. That's the first reason why I started using ad-blockers 15 years ago. The privacy issue is a recent thing. > We're doing a redesign now. Manager says that we should just discourage the users of…

> No. What's hurting your edit:employer's revenue is years of blinking GIFs, auto-play videos and misleading links thrown between paragraphs. That's the first reason why I started using ad-blockers 15 years ago. The privacy issue is a recent thing. I don't know what you read, but blinking GIFs and misleading links are only on sketchy or adult-themed sites. As for the auto-play videos, that was a direct response to th…

blinking gifs and misleading links were par for the course 15 years ago.

Re: Is it worth supporting Firefox?

#170

Post by inetknght »

jiveturkey wrote: post #160
RestlessMind wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the first reason why I started using ad-blockers 15 years ago. The privacy issue is a recent thing. So you are on board with Google's acceptable ads initiative then? What I find frustrating is that people (in aggregate, not individually) keep moving goalposts. First, it's about annoying ads and how they will accept good ads. When presented with good ads, it becomes about tracking and how they will pay for th…

it’s not just about as cheap as possible. ads are free.

Ads are not free. They cost users in bandwidth, device battery, and website usability.
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