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Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

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Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#571

Post by zo1 »

b3morales wrote: post #527
JohnFen wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never click on cookie consent banners, period. It has nothing to do with me not noticing them. I just leave them where they are unless they are too intrusive. If they're too intrusive, I leave the page. The reason that I don't click on them is because I've had bad experiences clicking on them in the past.

Zapping them with uBlock is also a good option.

Big game changer that, right-click what is bothering you and choose "Block element", then drag sliders to get it perfect. Done.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#573

Post by thewebcount »

bhauer wrote: post #466
jccalhoun wrote: post #299

I am amazed at how non-techy people use the internet. I teach college and I will sometimes have students go to some web site. I am amazed at how few use adblocking and just accept all the ads and popups and overlays and crap. Even more than that, I will see them using something like google docs and google will put an overlay for some new feature and they don't click the X to close it. They just type away with that ov…

Bear in mind that many younger people grew up with mobile computing first. So they're not as familiar with the "power user" desktop computing behaviors us older people have developed. Not dismissing that Google Docs overlay may be explained by any of the following: (a) learned behavior from mobile computing that very few things are configurable (mobile apps tend to have far fewer preferences on how things are display…

I think there might be a 4th option, which is that users are trained that clicking on anything other than links will result in pain. Clicking a dialog you didn't read may take you to another page and ask you to enter information. Or it may opt you in to something you don't want or need. It's just a needless distraction. This gets back to what I was saying about "cookie consent" dialogs a few weeks ago. I never click on them. I usually read in Reader view to not even see them. If I can't get the content without clicking something additional, I simply press the back button.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#574

Post by josefx »

atoav wrote: post #281
turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

As someone who has been in one or another meeting with German TV stations I can assure you this is not completely far fetched. The people deciding what is running at these stations are of the mindset (a translated quote): > Our average viewer is 65 years old and watches TV while doing the dishes, we must not show things that cannot be understood by them and then they will serenade about how they would "love to have a…

> > Our average viewer is 65 years old and watches TV while doing the dishes, we must not show things that cannot be understood by them

I haven't watched german TV in ages, but I distinctly remember science shows degrading from science to thinly veiled ads - things like literally running a companies marketing video or making a "scientific comparison" where they hand out random style points at the end to make a specific product win. I think they even got into trouble over it since ads and science/education shows are taxed differently. Anyone pretending that they are doing that for their viewers is living in denial at best, but probably just outright lying.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#575

Post by yosito »

bredren wrote: post #481
jccalhoun wrote: post #299

I am amazed at how non-techy people use the internet. I teach college and I will sometimes have students go to some web site. I am amazed at how few use adblocking and just accept all the ads and popups and overlays and crap. Even more than that, I will see them using something like google docs and google will put an overlay for some new feature and they don't click the X to close it. They just type away with that ov…

I know a CTO with plenty of wealth and space that sits at a kitchen table with a laptop instead of setting up a home work station. I know information workers who have workplaces that would gladly pay for nicer monitors or keyboards but don’t bother to even request them. I know a couple with a brand new house that has a miserably squeaky front door that could be silenced a half dozen ways in under a minute. People of…

A kitchen table? That's way more fancy than I bother with. I do most of my programming work from a couch or a hammock. It's a feature, not a bug. I have a workstation with a fancy dock, keyboard and trackpad, but I never really feel like using it. I will, however, close every unnecessary popup that comes my way.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#576

Post by thehappypm »

ignoramous wrote: post #529
thehappypm wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a little bit of a fundamental problem here. We're talking about paying a cent to avoid an ad. On a blockchain, work needs to be done to register that transaction. If the fee is a fraction of a penny, who is going to want to do the work? I get that you'll make it up at scale, but each transaction must be cryptographically secure (and therefore take up some type of resource), so there's a problem.

For "crypto" transactions, on-chain is no longer seen as a stringent requirement. In fact, the entire DeFi ecosystem wouldn't exist if there wasn't a cryptographically-secure way of doing transactions off-chain on second-level chains (0x, Polygon, Compound etc) or on chain of chains (Polkadot, Cosmos, Kava etc), or on chains built for payments (Celo, Diem, Stellar etc). Beside, Orchid.com whitepaper talks about doing…

Sure, if you put a layer on top, you can do whatever you want! It just adds more centralization, which isn't better than something like a Venmo that would be based on fiat.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#577

Post by 542354234235 »

ipaddr wrote: post #439
turbinerneiter wrote: post #15

There is a German movie about the system that is used to gather TV ratings. It's a special box that some users get which reports what they are watching. Small sample size goes into a big statistic (not sure how accurate the portrayal of the system in the movie is). These boxes are given to the people who pay the German public TV fee, which excludes i.e. students (they don't have to pay) and some other groups. This gr…

I don't block ads. I remember what the internet was about to become before ads stepped in. Everything of value was going to be pull behind paywalls. Let's say everyone get their wish and ads go away. Everything will require a purchase. Those purchases are logged to a real name/address. You end up with bigger privacy leaks. People will still be tracking you the way they are now. And at the credit card level. As an adu…

Ads have bloated the useful internet to the point that it is more expensive and less functional. We have 8,000 websites trying to show me a recipe for chicken parm, most of them with pages of family history and backstory, because they are all trying to get me to see their ads. A lightweight Wikipedia for recipes and a few high value added websites charging a trivial amount for access to their recipe catalog would be highly value added for me, and run on a fraction of the infrastructure.

Ads obscure solutions, and add redundancy and complexity with zero value added, because solving a problem means you no longer are on the page seeing ads. Simplifying or automating a process means you are clicking less pages less often and not seeing ads. If you automate something to directly connect users with what they need, then they don’t need to come back and see your ads. So we have automations they bring us to some middle man that can show us some ads before we can get to what we need.

Ads mean that maximizing the time your attention is held is the core value. High quality content that leaves you informed/satisfied/fulfilled is worthless compared to low quality content that is just good enough to keep you from leaving, without being having enough substance to actual fulfill you, because then you might leave and not see the ads we have to show you.

Podcasts show us that a tiny minority of users able to pay for content subsidize an incredible amount of added value content for everyone, whether they can pay or not.

Ads don’t level the playing field. Ads are an ever growing tumor, sapping resources and weighing everything down in a mindless effort to replicate.

Re: Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

#579

Post by yosito »

gpas wrote: post #530
LordRishav wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to prevent that is by disabling JavaScript. Generally, JavaScript is what enables such banners to popup and obstruct your vision with newsletter requests.

The best way is to install uBlock (or your preferred ad blocker), not to disable javascript. Javascript is like a knife. Do I want people who know how to use a knife in my house? Yes of course. Do I want people that stab other people in my house? No. Nowadays there are tools to leave those people outside your door. It's time to end the association between javascript and bad web practices.

I use uMatrix. It allows me to block all third party scripts by default, easily unblock them one by one if I need to, and save my changes for sites I visit often.
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