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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

#891

Post by dspillett »

ImHereToVote wrote: post #614
dspillett wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is to an extent why facebook can make the ads harder to block, they control the ad infrastructure (or at least some of it) as well as the app infrastructure. For many sites that is not the case, running adtech infrastructure is not even close to their primary business and taking the task on individually isn't worth the admin cost. Companies wanting to advertise don't just come along and say “my product is aligne…

Seems like this is a market gap that can be solved by LLMs. Do offline analysis of the traffic of a page and make adds completely opaque to tracking.

If I go as far as using that much compute (or paid “tokens”) to block the tracking and adverts, I think I'm better off just leaving the platform entirely!

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

#892

Post by account42 »

okamiueru wrote: post #694
mrngld wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, steal from everyone (taxation) whether they want to support or use government-run Facebook, give the money to government-run Facebook, and everything will be great because Government? What incentive does that mechanism have to spur innovation for government-run Facebook? Does the government fund two Facebooks and scale funding based on market share? Or, like what virtually always happens in government, does it me…

Not sure to what extend, if at all, I should engage here, as you do have some strong preconceptions that probably makes it less likely productive. > Steal from everyone (taxation) [...] give the money to government-run Facebook, and everything will be great because Government Not touching this. As an exercise, take it upon yourself to figure out how much it cost per meter (or, I assume more familiar to you -- footbal…

It's sad that people today can't digital equivalents to things like the telephone network or the postal service existing without a private company being able to profit from them. What we consider infrastructure is still stuck in the 20th century.

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

#893

Post by account42 »

andsoitis wrote: post #696
bialpio wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s why movies (...) can clear a billion dollars, And yet somehow I still get 30 minutes of ads before a watching a goddamn movie in a cinema.

Just take your seat 30mins later.

Personally if I had experienced that I would just take my business elsewhere. Companies will keep pushing boundaries like this if the worst outcome from them is that for some customers they won't be able to extract the additional profit.

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

#894

Post by account42 »

crummy wrote: post #568
Parae wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think Meta would spy less on us and show us less ads if we payed to access their services ? They would just keep doing what they've been doing for ages and they would have even more money to keep their enshitification going. We are already paying too much for all the services with subscription. Like Spotify, Netflix and others...

Plenty of other services (like Spotify) stop showing you ads if you pay them enough money.

If such a plan exists its always just a temporary situation until they add ads back in to keep the line going up.

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

#895

Post by account42 »

fsflover wrote: post #573
crummy wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of other services (like Spotify) stop showing you ads if you pay them enough money.

Until they decide that ads can give some profit on top of your payment. See: youtube [0], Windows, Apple [1]. [0] https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/416547/youtub... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322556 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433

Not to mention cable TV, the OG "ad-free" premium model.

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

#896

Post by account42 »

brikym wrote: post #633
snickerer wrote: post #549

Ads are an attack, aimed at your brain. They try to inject malware into your thinking, manipulating your worldview and your actions. That's horrible, worse than attacking a machine with malware, damaging persons and societies. Decades of ad propaganda have tricked people into seeing them as something 'normal'. But we shouldn't accept being under constant attack of brain worms. I propose a sane rule for all humans: if…

This. At least you can switch them off on the web but now big-ad is putting bright flickering digital billboards in sight of every public place. Politicians won't do a thing because they're some of the biggest customers. Obey.

> Obey.

We do have the technology to make those glasses now.

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

#897

Post by account42 »

brulx126 wrote: post #825
kavok wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe radio across Europe was largely ad free and had a different business model. The BBC for example.

You say "was" as if it was a thing of the past. But public broadcasting still exists in many countries in Europe, including radio and TV. They have either less or no ads and their quality is much higher than that of purely ad-funded private stations that nowadays are sometimes even completely automated.

> their quality is much higher

Hard disagree. At least commercial entertainment providers have to work to retain their customers, unlike public broadcasters where they get funded (either via taxes or forced licenses) no matter how many people dislike them.

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

#898

Post by c7b »

account42 wrote: post #889
c7b wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some utility to ads. Knowing that my favorite shop has a promotion, that a movie, game or book I've been waiting for is out, or something other that might interest me has some usefulness. The problem isn't the ad per se, it's optimization through A/B-tests and the like, mass psychological experiments with all the rigor of scientific studies and none of the academic ethical safeguards for human subject experi…

All those cases can be served you you voluntarily signing up to relevant notifications. The problem is the push model that incentivizes companies to show you things that will serve them and not you.

The way push notifications work today is a result of said optimization. Smartphones didn't start out with constant notifications, nor did any major desktop OS have them built in the way they do today.

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

#899

Post by account42 »

germandiago wrote: post #765
TheDong wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because some people are more resilient to opium, and some people can have a good time on it, doesn't mean you should get an opium injection when you're going for a regularly scheduled doctor's appointment. Ads are being forced on you when you're trying to do something else, like you go to facebook to see your actual friend's pictures of their kids, you're not looking for ads, and yet you get some micro-brainwash…

Those apps where you share pics or whatever would not exist without ads if people had to pay for them. So I am not sure if all is bad in that sense. Bc it lets the apps for sharing without people having to pay to exist in the first place. I am not doing any assessment regarding to the toxicity of ads. I am just trying to objectively say that this also spreads "horizontally" software for free in some sense.

> Those apps where you share pics or whatever would not exist without ads if people had to pay for them.

This is a wild assertion.

Were we not able to build roads before billboards were invented? Does your telephone company interrupt your call with ads? Does the postal service open your letters to insert a leaflet with promotional offers? What alternate universe do people who claim this live in???

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

#900

Post by account42 »

dartharva wrote: post #873
sevenzero wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me 1-2 examples of useful info we can get from ads?

Like whenever/wherever there's a sale going on about something you were out to buy anyway, helping you save money.

Do you think companies run those sales so they can earn less from you? If you didn't buy it before the sale, then why not?
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