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uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

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Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#441

Post by colesantiago »

yaportmax wrote: post #359

Controversial but honest question: How do anti-ads people propose the free open internet monetizes itself?

The real answer, like with any service in the real world is to charge for it.

That is the only way to keep any service online sustainable without ads.

There are also donations, but that can only take you so far.

Things cost money, server costs and domain costs rise, bandwidth gets expensive as bots and AI agents surge and scrape websites.

It is the only way, without having ads all over the place.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#442

Post by socalgal2 »

Wishing that Apple would add OS level AI so I could use it to hide ads in apps. It doesn't need to manipulate the app. It just needs to recognize them and black them out. Apple doesn't have to block anything directly, they can leave it to users to do so they are just respecting the user.

As a simple one, the Facebook has this dark pattern where they put an unread count marker on Loops to try to get you to click it. It works, I click it by accident quite often even though I have zero interest in loops. There's no way to turn it off. But an OS Level AI could cover it with a black square

Yes, I get I could just not use the app. I still want to see what friends and family are up to so I launch the app -> menu -> feeds. This mostly removes everything I hate. But, that unread (1) marker on the loops icon gets me

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#443

Post by joshuat »

beloch wrote: post #335
dofm wrote: post #310

This is the correct decision, IMO. I only use Facebook in a limited capacity (one phenomenal private group whose usefulness is unfortunately simply unmatched elsewhere, one infrequently updated page and a very locked-down, minimal personal profile). I think people need to understand what the purpose of Facebook is in terms of its function and constituent parts, in the Stafford Beer sense, and I think if enough people…

Where Facebook has gone, I fear other U.S. social media is headed. Reddit recently blocked access to old.reddit.com for users who are not logged in, which suggests they're doubling down on user tracking. On top of that are the increasing privacy, censorship, and disinformation concerns that come with using any U.S.-based social media. There is clearly a need for facebook/reddit alternatives for useful groups like the…

I find the fall of Reddit to be particularly upsetting. In its prime it was one of the best social networks I'd ever used and I found incredible value in it - but after having my app blown up by their API changes and the continued (unsurprising) push away from their old open platform to a more "curated" experience, it doesn't feel like the same place anymore.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#444

Post by asadotzler »

yaportmax wrote: post #362
Marsymars wrote: post #72

The immediate fix to this is regulatory action. Facebook has made itself indispensable in a number of areas that are in the public interest and should be treated as a public good for these purposes. Ads are pollution, and Facebook is forcing people to choose between ingesting pollution and using facebook marketplace, or throwing their used but functional goods in the garbage.

Are you proposing banning advertising on Facebook? You know this will effectively destroy Facebook, Google, every free ad supported website on the internet?

We were fine before any of that. The web in 2007 was fantastic. Then Google bought DoubleClick, consolidated web advertising and Facebook opened itself to not-edu addresses. Those events were the beginning of the end. Everything that sucks about the web today can be traced back to those two events. I say fuck 'em, roll the clock back to 2007 and let the chips fall where they may. I don't care if that means a Facebook doesn't exist or that Google is just a search engine and not the web's majority shareholder.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#446

Post by modzu »

jimrandomh wrote: post #282

Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. I am significantly less tolerant of ads than average people seem to be. (I think average people are making a horrible mistake about this, and are badly cognitively damaged by ads in ways they don't realize). If my choices are to look at ad…

you mean a rectangle over the entire page?

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#447

Post by dofm »

not_a_bot_4sho wrote: post #436
dofm wrote: post #310

This is the correct decision, IMO. I only use Facebook in a limited capacity (one phenomenal private group whose usefulness is unfortunately simply unmatched elsewhere, one infrequently updated page and a very locked-down, minimal personal profile). I think people need to understand what the purpose of Facebook is in terms of its function and constituent parts, in the Stafford Beer sense, and I think if enough people…

I don't mean personal offense to you but I find the heavily qualified "I don't support this person/organization but I support this person/organization" doublespeak to be frustrating. Not just your comment. It's all over the place here. But maybe I shouldn't be throwing stones in my glass house. I smoked cigarettes for a few years on college, knew they were terrible for me and for those around me, but continued for to…

It’s not doublespeak, just context. I am saying: I alas use it like almost everyone else, because I more or less have to. It would be a lie if I said I don’t, and my critique would be of little value if i didn’t. I do use it minimally and locked down, as I say; three family members as friends, an old page I need to manage, and a doodle for a profile photo. But I am seeing all the problems I am talking about.

I don’t think people need to leave, necessarily, and I cannot urge them to do so. But I do think people should shrink their engagement with it, use it as little as is feasible, shrink their footprint, allow it less, so Facebook changes. Unfortunately it is a big part of life on the internet, it’s often people’s literal job to be there, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#448

Post by rescbr »

magicalhippo wrote: post #400
titzer wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my brain developed that as a defense mechanism. The web cultivated a certain kind of blindness where I literally don't look at certain parts of pages because my brain has learned that there is never anything useful there. Sometimes I just cannot see things unless I force my eyes to move across the page linearly, top to bottom. This is pathological. Like I find myself not ever looking at the top result in a se…

I was asked to test the redesigned web page of a large bank. They had eye tracking cameras and such hooked up to study how I used the web page. They ran through some scenarios, and one was how to get a car loan. I studied the homepage and found nothing, then clicked the menu and found loans, but no car loan on the loans page. I ended up searching and found it. After each scenario they asked me some questions, and the…

I guess it’s ages of fake download button ads in download pages.

My instinct is “if it is an ad, then whatever it is offering is a scam”.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#450

Post by geye1234 »

ajkjk wrote: post #320
jimrandomh wrote: post #282

Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. I am significantly less tolerant of ads than average people seem to be. (I think average people are making a horrible mistake about this, and are badly cognitively damaged by ads in ways they don't realize). If my choices are to look at ad…

I'm hoping we can mostly ban ads in my lifetime (on the basis that companies should not be allowed to freely try to manipulate unconsenting strangers. and that it makes the world suck to live in and we don't have to put up with that). Nothing would make me happier honestly.

“If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.” ― Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
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