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Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

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Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#71

Post by gdhbcc »

amrrs wrote: post #41
dest wrote: post #3

Hello, author of Adblock Radio here. Thanks for posting this. I can answer questions if you have any. You can read more on the context of this project in this article: https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-audio...

I know we don't want to see / hear ads. But at the same time, these ads on the podcast are making livelihoods/income for those content creators and If we strip that off of them, saying I don't like ads but hey I do like your content. Where do you think we can have the line?

Their need to make a living is not a legitimate excuse to brainwash me.

If they cannot find an ethical business model, then they must go out of business.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#72

Post by buboard »

Intermernet wrote: post #68
buboard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When?

Not that long ago. When I was in university in 1996 there were almost no ads. When I left university in 1999 there were a lot more. The quality of content didn't really increase in that time. Right now there are youtube channels that don't monetize, and have good content. There are soundcloud profiles, blogs and short stories that have no ads. Most of the advertised internet is garbage, but it's also by far the most…

That content is still there, with no ads. You can limit yourself to academic institution websites if you want.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#73

Post by nickjj »

efdee wrote: post #65
nickjj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trying to plan a future for podcasts wherein it will be harder/impossible to skip the ads. Aren't most podcasts selling flat rate slots to run ads? Example: Company A gives podcast author $X amount of dollars to run a 30-60 second ad in their 1 hour podcast. If all 10,000 listeners don't listen to the ad then the podcast author still gets the same amount of ad revenue. My thought process on that is, if I begin to h…

If nobody listens to the ad, how much more episodes will the advertiser be willing to pay for?

None, but the people who skip the ads manually now are not going to buy the ad's product if they can't skip the ad. They were non-buyers in either case.

Ad skippers are generally a different type of person who won't be convinced to buy something just because they were forced to listen to it. They will however buy something on their own terms and some of them also like to show support for the things they listen to or watch by donating directly to the content provider (I do this a lot with music).

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#74

Post by t0mas88 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #11
Tepix wrote: post #7

I think the podcasts i listen to will not work, the moderators speak the ads themselves. Luckily it‘s easy to skip ahead 15 seconds at a time. At least ads in podcasts cannot track me so i don‘t feel i have to block them for that reason alone.

There's a thing called "server side ad injection" (more like cancer injection) that inserts arbitrary ads directly in the audio stream so the ad is independent from the original producer. Presumably they do some rudimentary tracking based on IPs, user-agent and whether your podcast client downloaded the file past the point where the ad is injected.

I worked in that industry 12 years ago, and already back then indeed there was a simple method to link some ID (usually cookie) to the injected content.

The startup I worked at used it for contests, out of 100k downloads of a podcast, 1 of them would get a different starting or ending segment to give away something. So it was persistent to your user-login on the podcasting portal (which was a thing back then :-))

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#75

Post by targonca »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #15

Neat software, but I think this is less defensible than other ad blockers. With web ad blockers you protect against tracking, privacy violations and potentially malware and thus don't see "unacceptable ads". In contrast this seems to be about blocking ads just for the sake of blocking ads.

>this seems to be about blocking ads just for the sake of blocking ads

No shit Sherlock, it's literally in their name: Adblock.

By the way, ads are violating privacy: the privacy of thought. They manipulate your thoughts creating associations between their brands and positive emotions. They try to make you feel bad and inadequate to incite you to buy their product. They lie, deceive and manipulate.

Advertising needs to die. Period.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#76

Post by mkolodny »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #46
diffeomorphism wrote: post #15

Neat software, but I think this is less defensible than other ad blockers. With web ad blockers you protect against tracking, privacy violations and potentially malware and thus don't see "unacceptable ads". In contrast this seems to be about blocking ads just for the sake of blocking ads.

There is a reason ad blockers are called "ad blockers", and not "tracking protectors" or "privacy protectors" or "malware protectors" (the latter three being their own category of software). It's because they exist precisely for blocking ads "just for the sake of blocking ads". Ads are malicious. It's perfectly fine to block them. Privacy protection is just a convenient side effect.

I agree that it's perfectly fine to block ads. And that ad blockers' primary feature is blocking ads.

At the same time, I think most ads aren't malicious. They aren't "intending to do harm". Ads sell things. Sometimes things people want. I'd guess that most people who use ad blockers just don't like being sold things.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#77

Post by dest »

amrrs wrote: post #41
dest wrote: post #3

Hello, author of Adblock Radio here. Thanks for posting this. I can answer questions if you have any. You can read more on the context of this project in this article: https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-audio...

I know we don't want to see / hear ads. But at the same time, these ads on the podcast are making livelihoods/income for those content creators and If we strip that off of them, saying I don't like ads but hey I do like your content. Where do you think we can have the line?

My dream would be that people that are fine with ads should have them, while people against should be able to subscribe to the content. Like Spotify actually, but radio does not offer that.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#79

Post by jordanpg »

mkolodny wrote: post #76
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason ad blockers are called "ad blockers", and not "tracking protectors" or "privacy protectors" or "malware protectors" (the latter three being their own category of software). It's because they exist precisely for blocking ads "just for the sake of blocking ads". Ads are malicious. It's perfectly fine to block them. Privacy protection is just a convenient side effect.

I agree that it's perfectly fine to block ads. And that ad blockers' primary feature is blocking ads. At the same time, I think most ads aren't malicious. They aren't "intending to do harm". Ads sell things. Sometimes things people want. I'd guess that most people who use ad blockers just don't like being sold things.

I choose to define "unsolicited attempts to take my attention away from things I care about" as harm.

I am happy to be sold things, on my own terms. I don't need ads to find out about things to buy.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#80

Post by lotsofpulp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #61
lotsofpulp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their attention, via ads, but not with money. Given the choice of paying $1 for a podcast or pirating said podcast, sufficient number of people would not choose the first option to make it a viable business.

That has not been established. In fact, the whole music, video and computer game industries are evidence of the opposite - even before DRM and convenient streaming/store platforms on-line, piracy was still just a drop in a bucket and businesses asking for money up front were perfectly viable.

People prefer free over paying all the time. Just see all of us wanting to avoid paying for the environmental externalities.

The only reason people don’t choose free over paying is if the convenience or cost is worth it. For music, organizing and having easy access to all music files is worth $10/month or less to many people versus risking copyright infringement charges. But raise that to $100/month, and see what people do...

The ease of transferring data on the internet and high bandwidth connections tilts the favor in choosing the free version.

Perhaps paid podcasts are possible if it’s easy enough, I might not mind 50 cents or $1 via Apple Pay in my podcasts app, or a subscription service that eliminates all ads.

Even if we ignore the piracy angle, an additional problem is if a vendor provides a service for free or cheaper with ads, people choose that one over one that is paid. So for items meant for mass consumption, such as podcasts, the more lucrative ones will be the ones with ads. Similar to how no one can compete with free offerings from Google or Facebook.

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