Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#31

Post by majewsky » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #24

singularity2001 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to be done by browser vendors, otherwise it will not be adopted.

It's not about browsers or tech, the extensions were universally available with a single click on modern browsers.

Extensions are very much not single-click:

1. Locate and open Addons screen (~2-3 clicks in the browser menu).

2. Locate and click "Get more addons" (1 click).

3. Wait for store page to open, search for desired extension. (Around a dozen keypresses for average-length extension name.)

4. Locate and click "Install" (1 click).

5. Confirm modal dialogs for installation and permissions (1-2 clicks).

That's nowhere near one-click and even if it were a one-click operation, 90% of users don't even know they would want to do that click.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#32

Post by Animats » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

micro-payment system

This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#33

Post by privong » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #32

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

micro-payment system This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

> This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

All the enthusiasm for ads only comes from the people who want to show/sell them. Not from the users who would be subjected to viewing them.

I think it's still a worthwhile discussion. Presumably the micropayments have fewer (or at least different) unintended consequences. And since in both cases (ads, micropayments) the side collecting the money is the one pushing them. So discounting micropayments solely on this basis isn't really a good way to discriminate.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#34

Post by kardos » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #32

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

micro-payment system This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

You're not wrong, but some users would be happy to buy their way out of the "advertising experience" for a few cents.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#35

Post by johnsea » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #32

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

micro-payment system This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

why do you know this? If you write such generalisations then please at least link some studies in support. -- Personally of course I would pay/use micropayments. It gives me the flexibility to not commit to a small number of services but to browse on a wide scope and still support.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#36

Post by swiftcoder » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

dmortin wrote: post #29

vivekseth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would server-side ads improve the user experience? I have some ideas about what you might mean (improve page load time, prevent content from jumping as ads load), but curious about what you think.

In case of smaller sites page load time would increase, because they still had to contact an ad network to retrieve the ads and assemble the page with ads on server side. It would only improve load time for big sites which have their own ad serving and a server farm on the backend to quickly retrieve ads without having to connect to an external ad network.

It should decrease the variance in load times. Several sites I use routinely have page load times in the low seconds for above-the-fold content, with a long-tail of up to minutes for all the ad content to finish loading (causing the page to re-layout throughout).

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#37

Post by bordercases » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #9

TL;DR: We find that installing ad blocking extensions substantially increases both active time spent in the browser and the number of pages viewed. (also known as "water is wet")

Water is wet, but to what degree?

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#38

Post by Klathmon » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

privong wrote: post #33

Animats wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

micro-payment system This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

> This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them. All the enthusiasm for ads only comes from the people who want to show/sell them. Not from the users who would be subjected to viewing them. I think it's still a worthwhile discussion. Presumably the micropayments have fewer (or at least different) unintended cons…

While I agree micropayments should be persued more, personally I've seen many MANY users that love when things are free (as in money).

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#39

Post by jordache » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

nattaylor wrote: post #3

If you accept that advertising is necessary to some business models, I hope to see publishers move ads back to the server because I think eliminating all the code from the client would drastically improve user experience. This would make them tougher to block and hinder users ability to control privacy, but it would also restrict tracking to that specific site.

>I hope to see publishers move ads back to the server because I think eliminating all the code from the client would drastically improve user experience.

How so? it still needs to be downloaded to the browser, and integrated with the content the use actually wants to see.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#40

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

dmortin wrote: post #14

crtasm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't all the ad networks use JavaScript? Has any network never let malicious code from advertisers slip through? (I guess Google? But I'd prefer not to have even more people embedding their js everywhere I browse)

How is it different when ads are served from server side? Most sites (especially smaller ones) would still use an ad network, because they don't have their own resources to find advertisers, which it calls from server side to retrieve the ad. And when the retireved ad code is injected into the page on server side it could still lead to some malicious site or whatever.

I suppose it would be easier to sue such site's operator, as malware is suddenly served directly from first-party. Thus, creating a strong incentive for site operators to actually curate their ad experience, instead of subscribing to whatever network is most profitable any given day.