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Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

imlefthanded.com

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Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#161

Post by williamdclt »

patrickk wrote: post #126
skummetmaelk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash This cannot be overstated. Everything today is a battle for eye-balls and ad money. The corruption is insane. You can't even buy appliances designed perform their function well. Instead you can buy cheap junk for less than cogs because they make money selling your data to ad companies instead of making money by making products that…

> You can't even buy appliances designed perform their function well You can't research good appliances either online, because the SERPs are stuffed with SEO-ed blogs and sometimes industry magazines, monetized with Amazon affiliates or other networks, with titles like "5 best dishwashers in 2022". Unless you know someone in the industry or offline with knowledge you don't know what to buy. This is noticeable in many…

The only solution I found to that is to bypass google completely and directly go search on Reddit, where real humans have human opinions (sometimes HN, too).

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#162

Post by beebeepka »

Better yet, go all the way in with No script and experience an even better email. A lot faster, too. Enabling us even on a handful of sites has a measurable impact on battery life on underpowered devices such as phones.

HN is working perfectly fine without js. For obvious reasons, most non video/chat/app sites work just fine as well.

I write us for a living so I'm not against in the least. It works for me.

My mind is blown every time I see what regular people experience. Horrible, though I am not sure it's worse than what we had to deal with back in the flash and days a decade ago. Could be.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#164

Post by judge2020 »

Tenoke wrote: post #63
zuminator wrote: post #7

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

In all fairness, if the rest of us didn't run adblockers, they probably wouldn't need to be so aggressive with the ads for those that currently don't.

To be fair, if people stopped blocking ads I don't see them backing off on Ads any more; the increase in revenue and ad watch time would be kept as profit, since the current YouTube paradigm where they show 2 ads at the start and sometimes multiple mid-roll ads is so that they annoy you enough to sign up for Premium.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#165

Post by loudtieblahblah »

TheIronMark wrote: post #46

No one likes ads, but the belief that you're owed content for free is absurd.

I pay for more Content than I ever have. Ever.

I have 600 records, pay directly for a YouTube show, pay for 5 substack blogs, I have hundreds of dvds, 500books, endless video games for multiple consoles, Netflix, hbomax, Hulu, boomerang, Shudder, Amazon, I've had sling, CBS watch, wb archive, criterion, and others.

I go through periods of Pandora or Spotify.

The reality is every company wants to charge but they all want to be on the open web at the same time.

Can't have it both ways.

I control what downloads on the internet I pay for, on the device I own.

If you didn't erect a paywalls? Your fault. Not mine.

I wouldn't bed a stranger without a condom

I don't browse without an ad blocker. Or privacy badger.

People who understand ad blockers but don't use them are corporate sychophants.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#166

Post by onion2k »

bambax wrote: post #94
skummetmaelk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash This cannot be overstated. Everything today is a battle for eye-balls and ad money. The corruption is insane. You can't even buy appliances designed perform their function well. Instead you can buy cheap junk for less than cogs because they make money selling your data to ad companies instead of making money by making products that…

The funny part is I remember a time when even on HN the majority defended ads for a myriad of reasons, and one of those reasons was that people actually liked ads and wanted them. This line of reasoning has completely disappeared from the mainstream. I think that's a problem for the ad companies. They have not yet lost the war, but it seems they have lost the argument.

The funny part is I remember a time when even on HN the majority defended ads for a myriad of reasons..

There's quite a lot of HN readers who work for businesses that derive most of their revenue from ads (Google, Facebook, content companies, etc) so there's always going to be people here who are willing to stand up for ads. The famous Upton Sinclair quote is quite appropriate - "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#167

Post by whoibrar »

parsd wrote: post #130

I've started to think about it differently. I no longer use any ad blockers. I actually want to experience the web (and its decline) the way it is, to take it all in, feel the pain and strengthen my patience in the process. Also, when I visit a website that is truly obnoxious with its ads, I simply leave immediately and never go there. You build your own filter of bad actors, behaviors, and concrete sites. You don't…

This has to be the most unpopular opinion so far

I have a few questions for you

1. How long have you been doing this ? 2. What do you think of other (not just monetization) ways ads are bad as in bloating the web, privacy and security issues ? 3. What if you truly need to access a website but it has too many ads ? You give up ? Use adblock ? Continue with ads ?

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#168

Post by silisili »

TheIronMark wrote: post #46

No one likes ads, but the belief that you're owed content for free is absurd.

Does anyone actually feel like they are owed anything for free (site seems down, apologies if the author said as much)?

I will browse news and articles sometimes -because- they are free. If they were not, I simply no longer visit said page. I don't feel I'm owed their content in any way, and I'm OK just walking away if they decide to paywall it.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#169

Post by danShumway »

xyst wrote: post #128
danShumway wrote: post #73

It's almost unbelievable how big the gap is. Sometimes I try to turn it off and check links before I share them to find out if they're actually good reading experiences. I've got a couple of sites that I used to reflexively share on social media that I've since learned not to because without an adblocker they auto-play videos at the top of the page - but I never ran into that behavior when I was using them, so I thou…

> I think that introducing nontechnical friends/family to adblockers and helping them set one up can be a really low-cost but high-impact kindness, I encourage people here to do so. I have done this in the past. However, I have discovered that most of the people I introduce to ad blocking will turn it off later. This is because some sites are able to detect when you are using an ad blocker and even provide steps to t…

I don't know if it makes that much difference, but I like that Ublock Origin by default only disables itself for the specific site you click it on when you click the big power button. I always try to reinforce to people how to turn Ublock Origin off if they need to (and I like that Ublock's UI makes this really easy to do), because I'd rather they disable adblocking for one site than remove it completely from their browser.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#170

Post by hackerlytest »

parsd wrote: post #130

I've started to think about it differently. I no longer use any ad blockers. I actually want to experience the web (and its decline) the way it is, to take it all in, feel the pain and strengthen my patience in the process. Also, when I visit a website that is truly obnoxious with its ads, I simply leave immediately and never go there. You build your own filter of bad actors, behaviors, and concrete sites. You don't…

That's actually a pretty good strategy and I am inclined to try it.
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