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

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

#141

Post by kbuck »

danShumway wrote: post #70
camgunz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have serious reservations about making the web pay-to-play. Low-income people would suffer from this, here in the US but definitely elsewhere in poorer countries. It's essentially a regressive tax on the web. Furthermore, low-income people often run into barriers securing access to the kinds of payment systems micropayments would use (credit cards, etc.). It's also completely unregulated -- if you thought micropaym…

If you think clickbait is bad now, think about how bad it'll be when aggregate traffic percentages across the entire ISP are used to determine site revenue. And you'd need to do it that way, because mandating that an ISP must track every single website someone visits is a huge privacy problem that people like me would never support. But once you start doing aggregate stats instead of individual stats, you start to ru…

Google actually had/has an interesting micropayment-esque solution to this that neatly solves almost all of the problems with micropayments. It's called "Google Contributor"[0].

Here's how it used to work: You'd pay Google Contributor $5-$15 per month. When visiting a page with ads, Google Contributor would bid for the ad spot on your behalf and show a non-ad when it won. This has the benefit of paying each site what they're "worth" based upon the bids for the ad space, so it entirely sidesteps the problem of valuation. Additionally, there's an easy out for people who can't afford it as well - view the ads.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end... I only learned about Contributor right before it was reworked. After the rework, it now only works with a list of sites that have opted-in, and the list is disappointingly short[1]. It basically seems dead now.

[0]: https://contributor.google.com/v/beta [1]: https://support.google.com/contributor/answer/7324995

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

#142

Post by danShumway »

camgunz wrote: post #139
danShumway wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think clickbait is bad now, think about how bad it'll be when aggregate traffic percentages across the entire ISP are used to determine site revenue. And you'd need to do it that way, because mandating that an ISP must track every single website someone visits is a huge privacy problem that people like me would never support. But once you start doing aggregate stats instead of individual stats, you start to ru…

This is a detailed response that my off-the-cuff idea doesn't really deserve, haha :sweat_smile: I'll try and give more shape to what I had in mind with my responses. > mandating that an ISP must track every single website someone visits is a huge privacy problem that people like me would never support I would also never advocate or support this, and I'm firmly in favor of an anonymous web. I think that's a separate…

Note that one important thing with Spotify is that musicians can choose whether or not they're available on it. We can't adopt the same model for ISPs unless we're comfortable with different portions of the web being available via different ISPs, which IMO would be a net negative.

So whatever pricing model exists has to be a completely universal standard. ISPs can't decide not to pay it, and websites can't negotiate with ISPs for higher profit models.

Well, OK, if a model like that exists, then sure, we can just all adopt it. But, the existence of a universal way to value content online and to measure engagement is not a problem that can be just glossed over. People like me would argue that formula probably isn't even possible to create.

Brave is trying to create something like this with its attention token. I think they're incredibly naive, but they do have the huge advantage that they are only one company and you can decide whether or not you want to engage with them. Building it into the browser is... eh, problematic-ish. But it's a far cry from legislating it. Other people who disagree with Brave can iterate on their model, or go off and do something completely different.

It's kind of like the Open Source philosophy. I'm allowed to do stupid things because it's easy for you to repurpose my work and then ignore me. ;) But when it's a standard, then I can't be stupid anymore. Then it needs to be right the first time.

So in theory, if there exists a standard that everyone can agree on, I guess we could put that at the ISP level? But that feels like putting the cart before the horse to me.

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

#143

Post by dmortin »

Kalium wrote: post #134
dmortin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this would again hurt the little guys (blogs, forums, smaller sites managed by 1 or 2 people) who don't have the capacity to find advertisers and curate ads, and for this reason, have to use an ad network. The big sites, facebook and co. can easily do some curation and find advertisers, so as it was mentioned before these changes would only eliminate the small players while further concentrating the web into the h…

If your question is "Are we as a society willing to sacrifice the income of some small sites to keep users from being infected and having their privacy invaded?", then you may wish to contemplate the possibility that a lot of people might just say "Yes".

No, the question is: do we want more and more content concentrated into the hands of big players, eliminating little, independent publishers? Do we want this?

If the answer is no then there must be a feasible, scalable alternative for small players before we eliminate the current ad based model, otherwise the little guys will die and all we have will be huge media sites pushing their own agendas without small, independent publishers having a chance of standing up to them.

That is the dilemma.

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

#144

Post by Kalium »

dmortin wrote: post #143
Kalium wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your question is "Are we as a society willing to sacrifice the income of some small sites to keep users from being infected and having their privacy invaded?", then you may wish to contemplate the possibility that a lot of people might just say "Yes".

No, the question is: do we want more and more content concentrated into the hands of big players, eliminating little, independent publishers? Do we want this? If the answer is no then there must be a feasible, scalable alternative for small players before we eliminate the current ad based model, otherwise the little guys will die and all we have will be huge media sites pushing their own agendas without small, indepe…

> No, the question is: do we want more and more content concentrated into the hands of big players, eliminating little, independent publishers? Do we want this?

Herein lies the catch: you have correctly and properly identified a potential side-effect.

The question, I think, is this: how many users and how much privacy are we willing to sacrifice for this precious, wonderful, beloved, amazing side-effect? I know my answer, and I see no dilemma at all.

The horrific outcome you so rightly point to is not an ideal outcome, in isolation. At the same time, there's never a guarantee that there must be some convenient alternative. The wish for a thing does not conjure it into being, or even prove that it is possible. And in this case, some might decide that our beloved side-effect isn't as important as some other things.

Though I understand if some prefer to see the security and privacy of users as something to be traded off against for financial convenience.

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

#145

Post by vivekseth »

manigandham wrote: post #119
swiftcoder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

If the browser is waiting for it then the server would be waiting for it too. The endpoints for adexchanges are the same and wouldn't be any faster just because it's coming from a server instead.

I suppose ads could be cached server-side, but it would probably be more efficient to cache an ad client-side. If ads are personalized few users of a website may see the same ad, but an individual may see the same ad on different websites.

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

#146

Post by Tsubasachan »

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.

Many people who support ads imply some kind of social contract with their business model. I never signed such a thing and they can shove it up their rear end. If you make your site public I will consume it however I wish.

Self hosted unobtrusive ads without tracking? Yes I will disable ublock. But it won't happen because tracking simply makes too much $€¥.

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

#147

Post by dmortin »

Kalium wrote: post #144
dmortin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the question is: do we want more and more content concentrated into the hands of big players, eliminating little, independent publishers? Do we want this? If the answer is no then there must be a feasible, scalable alternative for small players before we eliminate the current ad based model, otherwise the little guys will die and all we have will be huge media sites pushing their own agendas without small, indepe…

> No, the question is: do we want more and more content concentrated into the hands of big players, eliminating little, independent publishers? Do we want this? Herein lies the catch: you have correctly and properly identified a potential side-effect. The question, I think, is this: how many users and how much privacy are we willing to sacrifice for this precious, wonderful, beloved, amazing side-effect? I know my an…

The danger of possible outlets for alternative voices controlled more and more by big corporations is at least as bad as the privacy implications.

So there must be a tradeoff if we wan't privacy, but we also want to have publishing outlets independent of big corporations. There is currently no perfect solution where we can have total privacy and also little publishers can sustain themselves.

I'm saying that we must find a balance where we have some of both. Having 100% of one while giving up the other is not the answer.

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

#148

Post by dmortin »

vivekseth wrote: post #145
manigandham wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the browser is waiting for it then the server would be waiting for it too. The endpoints for adexchanges are the same and wouldn't be any faster just because it's coming from a server instead.

I suppose ads could be cached server-side, but it would probably be more efficient to cache an ad client-side. If ads are personalized few users of a website may see the same ad, but an individual may see the same ad on different websites.

If a smaller site uses and ad network on the server side then ads cannot be cached on the server, because the ad network always serves the highest paying ad at the moment which constantly changes according to the ongoing ad auction and inventory.

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

#149

Post by Nursie »

Nursie wrote: post #86
jasode wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Yes, it does seem that way because nobody actually says, "Please please give ads because I love them!" Instead, the correct way to frame what users really want is to separate "stated preferences" from revealed preferences .[1] The stated preference, of course, is for users to c…

These things are very much aggregates and averages. A significant number of people do subscribe to spotify, and some is buy the ad-free kindles.

some of us buy the ad-free...

sigh, phone keyboards and a lack of proof-reading.

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

#150

Post by singularity2001 »

jonathansampson wrote: post #103
singularity2001 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes for the sake of independent content creators please introduce such a system, Mozilla. People might run to Firefox, the first ad-less browser. Other vendors can adopt it later.

This is why we created Brave Rewards (formerly Brave Payments) in the Brave browser. Today more than 4 million monthly active users are able to support YouTubers, Twitch streamers, and other content creators via pro-rata contributions of Basic Attention Token. Via the ANONIZE2 protocol and ad-hoc VPN connections, users are able to support online content in a low-friction, anonymous, and private manner. We're working…

Wonderful! Sell you tech to Mozilla! (Not to the others)

Or become the next Mozilla

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