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Should I Block Ads?

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141–150 of 161 posts

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#141

Post by qppo »

laurentdc wrote: post #81

I just disable them via /etc/hosts because I can't tolerate any more useless javascript putting load on my CPU. My workstation (E5-2640) has seen multiple generations of operating systems, video editing software, DAWs. Browsers and web browsing in general is the only thing that I can tell it's getting consistently worse year after year. I know it's an odd metric but 10-15 seconds to fully render a newspaper homepage…

Funny because I feel this way about Cubase, it consistently gets worse. My projects take much longer to load than any webpage, fwiw.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#142

Post by paulcole »

quadrangle wrote: post #65
paulcole wrote: post #26

> Do ad blockers stop sites from making money? The honest answer to this is “Yes!”, not a 7-paragraph non-answer.

Adblockers stop sites from making money from those third-party ads . They obviously don't stop a shopping site from selling products or from GitLab.com registering users for GitLab services etc. If the way a site makes money is by abusing the visitors, adblockers stop the abuse and the money from that * side of things, which may be all the income they get, but not necessarily. So, this is not a simple yes/no situatio…

It is quite simple and you said it yourself.

> Adblockers stop sites from making money

Stop right there. You don’t get to decide the site’s business model. They get to choose it, not you.

And I mean duh, no kidding adblockers don’t stop online stores from letting people buy stuff. Thanks for the insight there.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#143

Post by DigitallyFidget »

gfody wrote: post #7

I was on a fresh setup recently and caught a glimpse of the raw internet on my way to install uBlock Origin and uMatrix. There are still fake download buttons everywhere. I can't understand how the non-ad-blocking world tolerates that stuff - no choice and no voice I guess? The amount of autoplaying videos was disturbing as well.

This is exactly why I insist on using adblocks. Trying to find the actual download link on pages is an absolute nightmare without them. The fact these sites allow ads like this and then complain if you use an adblocker is beyond me. If ads were not so hurtful to the experience of websites, I would have no reason to block them. The problem is that I feel I am forced to use an adblocker just to be able to navigate a webpage without aggressive bombardment of wasted bandwidth, visual garbage, misleading marketing, videos I don't want playing, noises I don't want to hear, and other aggressive tactics. The other part of it is that I will never ever click a link from an ad. If I want cheaper insurance, I'll look up my rates myself. If I want a bigger penis, I'll go see a doctor. If I want some such product, I'll look into it on my time. I'm just not a targetable demographic for advertising, but I feel I have to block them merely because of how relentless they are on so much of the internet.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#144

Post by abdullahkhalids »

cameronbrown wrote: post #36
centimeter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are better, more efficient ways to monetize than ads. Ads are one of the most destructive and socially wasteful ways to monetize content; it's just technically easy. If we make ads nonviable, you can expect things like micropayments to become more common (and I'm happy to make that trade).

(Disclosure: I work for Google, but not in Ads) Micropayments are generally considered to be unviable for the general population (edit: business model wise, not tech). People are unwilling to pay even pennies for an article[0], because now users are facing the burden of choice, constantly thinking about how their browsing is racking up pennies. Not to mention, it boxes you into the pay-per-article model. Sites like T…

> because now users are facing the burden of choice, constantly thinking about how their browsing is racking up pennies.

That's how text messages started, where you paid something per message. Pretty soon everyone shifted to the package model, where you prepaid for a whole bunch of messages - more than you would use in a month.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#145

Post by abdullahkhalids »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #6

I think this article downplays the downsides of ad blockers too much. If ad blockers become the norm, much of the current web will no longer be viable. Facebook, YouTube, Google, Reddit, StackOverflow, and countless other sites are fundamentally based on advertising and can't survive without it. The article tries to address this a little bit with the "Ad blockers do not block all advertising" section, but I don't thi…

Any business that needs to dump pollution into our waterways should not be allowed to operate, no matter how much good its products are. Any business that needs to destroy our minds in order to be profitable should not be allowed to operate.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#147

Post by effingwewt »

duck wrote: post #90

I wish instead of calling them "ad blockers", we had used something like "tracking blockers". The tracking/automation of ad networks is what the issue is, not the ads, yet we've made it more confusing for those that don't understand how these things work.

Not at all. I hate ads with a visceral passion. They are a theft of my time/attention for which I am not compensated.

No website has a right to exist, same with businesses. Nor do they have a right to my attention. People all cry 'the world will die without ads!'... no. Some of us have been around since the Internet started. All sites were free and no ads (banner ads came later, and were mostly static)-the sites full of passion, hours poured in for no financial gain. The difference is that now we have a generation of young people who feel entitled to make money off everything.

Now, the tracking is most definitely an issue, but first and foremost for myself and many others is the hatred of any and all ads. Life really is different without them. If someone comes up with an ear/eye implant to block all ads (tv, radio, billboards all of it) I'd pay whatever it cost.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#148

Post by krapp »

paulcole wrote: post #142
quadrangle wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adblockers stop sites from making money from those third-party ads . They obviously don't stop a shopping site from selling products or from GitLab.com registering users for GitLab services etc. If the way a site makes money is by abusing the visitors, adblockers stop the abuse and the money from that * side of things, which may be all the income they get, but not necessarily. So, this is not a simple yes/no situatio…

It is quite simple and you said it yourself. > Adblockers stop sites from making money Stop right there. You don’t get to decide the site’s business model. They get to choose it, not you. And I mean duh, no kidding adblockers don’t stop online stores from letting people buy stuff. Thanks for the insight there.

>You don’t get to decide the site’s business model. They get to choose it, not you.

They can choose any model they like, but we decide whether or not it's profitable.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#149

Post by gxnxcxcx »

squarefoot wrote: post #121
Hamuko wrote: post #2

How many people actually disable their adblockers when sites don't allow you to access them if you have one enabled? It's just much easier to close the tab.

Some sites can be fooled using tools such as uMatrix which block elments at finer granular level, but is tedious to configure and not very friendly to non technical users. If I can't stop junk on a site that way, unless the information is really vital, I usually close the tab and forget about it.

I think medium mode in uBO is a fair balance between granularity and usability:

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#150

Post by frosted-flakes »

duck wrote: post #90

I wish instead of calling them "ad blockers", we had used something like "tracking blockers". The tracking/automation of ad networks is what the issue is, not the ads, yet we've made it more confusing for those that don't understand how these things work.

They're commonly called "content blockers", because they can block more than ads.
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