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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

#331

Post by endominus »

1shooner wrote: post #185
m12k wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with BAT is that it tries to give me power over the commercialization of something that I don't want commercialized. It's like someone launched a "Basic Sexual Favor Token" to empower me to take control over the sex work I'm expected to perform every day. I have a hard time being happy that they want to empower me, because I'm too busy being aghast at their assumption that this aspect of my life is…

Could you describe the negative consequence of BAT for a website owner that doesn't want to sell ads?

Website owners no longer have a choice. Brave is incentivized to add ads to otherwise ad-free websites, and apparently does so as Matthew Butterick complains about; https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html

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

#332

Post by sgjohnson »

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.

I have an ethical dilemma about YouTube. I hate ads, I hate Google, and I want to support the creators.

For those reasons adblock is a must, and paying for YouTube Premium is not an option (I’m not going to voluntarily give a single penny of my money to Google)

Sure, I’ve got CuriosityStream and Nebula subs, but not all content creators use those platforms.

It is what it is.

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

#333

Post by adamc »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #17
blakesterz wrote: post #2

In FireFox I have my ad blockers disabled in Private Mode so nothing is getting in the way if I'm testing or some site is being weird. Sometimes it's SHOCKINGLY different how a page looks with the blockers in place. I really can't believe anyone would user a browser without an ad blocker if they knew how things would look while using one. The web is a much better place with a blocker in place. (Yes, I know, we get a…

I feel zero guilt about ad blocking. There was some period of discussion on the subject back in like 2003 but the ad companies went to war against human civilization and there's been no going back. It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash and an entire generation has now reached adulthood knowing nothing but that hustle touching every bit of media they ever interact with. W…

Well said. Periodically, I try to turn ad-blocking off because of my sympathies for various web sites. I always turn it back on. The web is now unusable without ad-blocking, at least for me.

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

#334

Post by rtsil »

nsgi wrote: post #92
reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel zero guilt about ad blocking. There was some period of discussion on the subject back in like 2003 but the ad companies went to war against human civilization and there's been no going back. It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash and an entire generation has now reached adulthood knowing nothing but that hustle touching every bit of media they ever interact with. W…

I wonder if part of the problem is that the people who develop websites and put the ads on (developers) are largely also the people who use ad blockers so they don't realise how bad the experience is for regular users

Developers realize how bad the visual experience is, how the tracking scripts, the megapixel images and the huge videos are ruining their perfect pagespeed insights score, slowing down everything, eating the visitor's mobile plan and are an awful waste of energy.

But developers don't control what marketing put in their sweet Google Tag Manager container(s).

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

#335

Post by ffwszgf »

gzer0 wrote: post #250
armchairhacker wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I type "reddit" after the query and Reddit usually has good recommendations. Yes, advertisers can and do try to invade subreddits posing as "real" users to promote sham products. But I haven't seen this actually working: sometimes Redditors recommend products which are way too expensive (still good quality, but the extra price really isn't worth it), but if someone recommends a genuinely crappy product, they get down…

I used to type “reddit” after my searches to look for genuine and real reviews, but even that is now being gamed. Advertisers and shady affiliate marketing schemes have caught on and nearly every search result I try is now filled with junk, upvote farmed nonsense with fake accounts using similar naming schemes.

This is 100% the case when I was looking for a VPN recommendation.

So many of the Reddit threads were blatantly astroturfed.

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

#336

Post by Macha »

tasha0663 wrote: post #133
Macha wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, google can circumvent the ad blocker's attempts to block the ad playback from beginning, but if the first thing the ad does is have double verify check if you're a bot, and double verify's domain is in your adblocker's list, then the ad is going to fail and Google will try load some other ad once it errors out.

> double verify check if you're a bot I hate when they do this. I just leave and go somewhere else. I'm not submitting to Voight-Kampff just to see a LinkedIn profile.

To be clear, advertising bot detection is different to website bot detection. The website bot detection is because they're worried about spambots filling comments or DDOS attacks. This is where you get the captchas. The advertiser bot detection is more for the case where the website owner is in on it and trying to boost their metrics to get more revenue from advertisers, and is more likely to be expressed via blank ad slots and demands for refunds from the website owner.

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

#337

Post by barrkel »

bbarn wrote: post #310
hattmall wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One market where this has always been a problem is tools. So almost 20 years ago we were told in shop class that the industry magazines and reviews were basically all paid for by manufacturers. The solution we learned was to always buy the cheapest option first. If it breaks or fails to meet your needs understand how and why and then move on to a more costly tool that you can demonstrate is better in the specific way…

Harbor Freight's "low quality" tools will work for a great many average home owners doing some upgrading or light work. We absolutely fall into the trap of wanting the best thing ever, but how many people actually need the top of the line Milwaukee or Makita brand biscuit joiner for the 2 tables they ever make at 200$, vs the Harbor Freight one at 60 that you can probably find a coupon for to make it 45-50? On that n…

I'm sure a bunch of executives made nice bonuses selling the brand value down the river, though.

It's an incentive problem. It's extremely difficult to get incentives aligned over a timeline longer than a few years that it might take for options or stock to vest or clawbacks to expire.

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

#338

Post by HWR_14 »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #17
blakesterz wrote: post #2

In FireFox I have my ad blockers disabled in Private Mode so nothing is getting in the way if I'm testing or some site is being weird. Sometimes it's SHOCKINGLY different how a page looks with the blockers in place. I really can't believe anyone would user a browser without an ad blocker if they knew how things would look while using one. The web is a much better place with a blocker in place. (Yes, I know, we get a…

I feel zero guilt about ad blocking. There was some period of discussion on the subject back in like 2003 but the ad companies went to war against human civilization and there's been no going back. It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash and an entire generation has now reached adulthood knowing nothing but that hustle touching every bit of media they ever interact with. W…

> . It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash

Indeed. Even with an ad blocker, you have this issue where your momentary attention on the internet (say by visiting a site) is presumed to have value. So anything to get you to click on some shitty link.

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

#339

Post by Firmwarrior »

gzer0 wrote: post #250
armchairhacker wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I type "reddit" after the query and Reddit usually has good recommendations. Yes, advertisers can and do try to invade subreddits posing as "real" users to promote sham products. But I haven't seen this actually working: sometimes Redditors recommend products which are way too expensive (still good quality, but the extra price really isn't worth it), but if someone recommends a genuinely crappy product, they get down…

I used to type “reddit” after my searches to look for genuine and real reviews, but even that is now being gamed. Advertisers and shady affiliate marketing schemes have caught on and nearly every search result I try is now filled with junk, upvote farmed nonsense with fake accounts using similar naming schemes.

yeah, the other day I ran afoul of that practice

The top post in the relevant enthusiast sub recommending stuff to buy had no actual information, but it was stuffed with Amazon affiliate links. It was basically a "Top 5 X 2022" post except it was on Reddit instead of its own spam blog

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

#340

Post by ratherbefuddled »

acdha wrote: post #111
TheIronMark wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I have complicated feelings on this — content creators need to be paid for their work but the ad networks have done a ton of collateral damage, too: I've had major sites like nytimes.com or youtube.com send me malware via Google's ad network, and ads make the web significantly slower and less reliable. I avoided using an ad blocker for years but installed Firefox Focus everywhere a while back after getting tired of a…

I'm not sure content creators need to be paid for their work. At least, not all. What internet surveillance does is motivate people to create awful content that nobody in the market would pay for in order to skim dollars from what is largely a privacy invading, fraudulent vacuum of an industry.

People will pay for good content, they did for a long time before there was an internet or a surveillance industry. There were books, films, subscription TV services, paid for audio. There were also steady streams of novel manuscripts, demo tapes and screenplays that went straight into the bin because they were rubbish. Now the rubbish hangs around on a webpage surrounded by trackers, luring people in with clickbait titles and lies, and multiplying beyond the ability of even google to sort out.

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