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Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

theregister.com

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Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#51

Post by foobarbaz321 »

JohnFen wrote: post #48
ffsm8 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a difference without a distinction? All copyright infringement lawsuits are centered around the loss of revenue the infringement caused.

Not at all. The distinction is very real. Many copyright infringement lawsuits are not about the money, but are about the use of copyrighted material in a way, or by an entity, that the copyright holder doesn't approve of. They aren't upset that they weren't getting paid, they're upset at their work being used in a way they oppose. It's also true that (outside of criminal copyright infringement) the only remedy that…

And to provide a concrete example: Rage Against The Machine demanded that Rush Limbaugh stop using their music on air. Because those performances were not licensed, they qualified as an illegal performance of the work. But RATM certainly didn't issue that cease and desist because they were concerned about lost revenue.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#52

Post by jqpabc123 »

riku_iki wrote: post #49
jqpabc123 wrote: post #7

"Personalized" advertising is just plain dumb --- and it is only a matter of time before advertisers are forced to reach the same obvious conclusion as consumers.

> "Personalized" advertising is just plain dumb Could you elaborate? Imo it is the most efficient way of advertising..

Searching for a product or visiting a web site can trigger "personalized" ads that follow you all over the internet --- even on totally unrelated web sites --- even after you've already made a purchase and no longer have any need for the product.

This violates your privacy, wastes your time and communication bandwidth and squanders advertiser's money. In other words, it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are now blocking it.

A much more reasonable/sensible alternative --- "context sensitive" advertising. Only show ads when the consumer specifically expresses an interest --- not next week or next month, not while he is doing something totally unrelated, not long after a purchase has already been.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#54

Post by skilled »

tzs wrote: post #46
skilled wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2000 is 0.0007% of 260M adults living in the USA. “Majority of Americans” is a bit off the rails, imo.

The margin of error when using a random sample of 2000 people out of a population of 260M is less than 2.19% with a 95% confidence level. You are probably making the common mistake of thinking that the larger the population the bigger a sample needs to be to accurately poll. That is true for lower populations but the "sample needed vs. population size" curve is asymptotic. For example, suppose we want to determine wh…

Thanks for pointing that out. I honestly don’t know anything about surveys. Someone vouched for the company that did it for them, but I am still skeptical that their claim is true or that it deserves such a sensational title.

If the survey process was published also then I would have zero issue with it.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#55

Post by riku_iki »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #52
riku_iki wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Personalized" advertising is just plain dumb Could you elaborate? Imo it is the most efficient way of advertising..

Searching for a product or visiting a web site can trigger "personalized" ads that follow you all over the internet --- even on totally unrelated web sites --- even after you've already made a purchase and no longer have any need for the product. This violates your privacy, wastes your time and communication bandwidth and squanders advertiser's money. In other words, it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are n…

> squanders advertiser's money

advertisers know how to count money. If those Ads won't be efficient, you wouldn't see them. If you see them, it means they are efficient and lead to actual user engagements.

> it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are now blocking it.

Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them, this also applied to "contextual" Ads like on youtube and google search, if company put too many of them, users will be blocking them regardless of targeting approach.

> A much more reasonable/sensible alternative --- "context sensitive" advertising. Only show ads when the consumer specifically expresses an interest

Advertisers obviously run those campaigns too. If that interest is very strong and well monetized, advertiser will shift funds to that slice, but that's not always the case, hence we see "personalized" Ads, because they are more efficient in many cases.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#56

Post by withinboredom »

riku_iki wrote: post #55
jqpabc123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching for a product or visiting a web site can trigger "personalized" ads that follow you all over the internet --- even on totally unrelated web sites --- even after you've already made a purchase and no longer have any need for the product. This violates your privacy, wastes your time and communication bandwidth and squanders advertiser's money. In other words, it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are n…

> squanders advertiser's money advertisers know how to count money. If those Ads won't be efficient, you wouldn't see them. If you see them, it means they are efficient and lead to actual user engagements. > it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are now blocking it. Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them, this also applied to "contextual" Ads like on youtube and google search, if company put…

I worked for two companies that turned off Google ads. Revenue didn’t even change at all. It was never turned back on.

Advertisers know how to count money, but they are too scared to turn off advertising to find out if they even work.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#57

Post by withinboredom »

rchaud wrote: post #23
ramesh31 wrote: post #4

This plus the third-party cookie apocalypse means advertisers are going to need to seriously reconsider the entire approach of personalization and targeting. For all of the billions and billions of dollars poured into ad-tech, I really don't buy that this stuff is any more effective than manually chosen or page contextual display ads. Maybe for juicing a few short term points on an A/B test, sure. But has anyone seri…

Cookies are as good as dead already, and have mostly been replaced with: - native apps with device-level Mobile Advertising ID exposed - login walls (e.g. Twitter) - browser fingerprinting

Cookies are very much alive (still the best way to do CSRF protection). I think you mean 3rd party cookies?

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#58

Post by rokkitmensch »

aaomidi wrote: post #33
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

The original report: https://www.ghostery.com/blog/privacy-report-advertisers-and... . Curiously, only "76% of experienced cybersecurity professionals and 72% of programmers also reported using an adblocker, compared to just 52% of Americans."

I was once a security engineer at Google. So many people really believed ad blocking is like, actual theft. Got into an argument about that with my manager once lol.

So is the excess consumption of my CPU cycles with asinine JS.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#59

Post by riku_iki »

withinboredom wrote: post #56
riku_iki wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> squanders advertiser's money advertisers know how to count money. If those Ads won't be efficient, you wouldn't see them. If you see them, it means they are efficient and lead to actual user engagements. > it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are now blocking it. Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them, this also applied to "contextual" Ads like on youtube and google search, if company put…

I worked for two companies that turned off Google ads. Revenue didn’t even change at all. It was never turned back on. Advertisers know how to count money, but they are too scared to turn off advertising to find out if they even work.

> Advertisers know how to count money, but they are too scared to turn off advertising to find out if they even work.

its publishers, not advertisers. Publishers see what share of revenue comes from Ads, and can decide to keep them or not.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#60

Post by withinboredom »

riku_iki wrote: post #59
withinboredom wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for two companies that turned off Google ads. Revenue didn’t even change at all. It was never turned back on. Advertisers know how to count money, but they are too scared to turn off advertising to find out if they even work.

> Advertisers know how to count money, but they are too scared to turn off advertising to find out if they even work. its publishers, not advertisers. Publishers see what share of revenue comes from Ads, and can decide to keep them or not.

Ah, fair distinction.

Though also, attribution to ads is bullshit. When we turned off our ad spend at both companies, it became clear that most of new revenue was from direct (organic) sources. We had been advertising to people who were going to buy our products anyway.

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