Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#11

Post by yesplorer » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:14 PM UTC

Well, I doubt if anything really spectacular will happen. Content owners will get their developers to whip up scripts that prevent users with adblock from accessing the content.

I visited a small forum via a google search where I was redirected to a page "encouraging" me to disable adblock since the site runs on ad revenue. Of course, I abandoned the site.

There is already a wordpress plugin to detect adblockers [1]

Now, once sites start implementing these measures adblock developers will develop their product to circumvent these scripts. Content developers will update their script to break these new tools, adblock developers will update their tools to again circumvent the new script and the cycle continues.

Don't even think of paid for/subscription models because a large percentage of these sites know their content are not worth paying for so won't even bother considering it. They simply want eyeballs to attract advertisers.

[1]http://wordpress.org/plugins/no-adblock/

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#12

Post by Jefff8 » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:14 PM UTC

1. Won't happen at 100% penetration. Horses are still ridden. Some people still use quills. People without adblockers become more valuable.

2. Personal, targeted advertising rather than mass advertising. [Only you can see this: Why not try a holiday in Greece next year - it's cheap and the beaches are great, fantastic culture and the people are pretty easy on the eye.]

3. It will be as good as a cold coke on a hot day when adverts are in-place in content. Heck, you'll be paid by advertisers for including product references.

4. People will pay for some things that they don't pay for now.

5. There will be an increase in sponsored material. [This reply brought to you by Drupal. The finest CMS you will ever use.]

6. People will be paid to not have adblockers switched on. [Thanks for reading. Now click here for your $1 - news.ycombinator.com.]

Things change. Nobody expects economies to be static any more, do they? People will invent new ways or re-invent old ways.

Edit: Meh. Bad formatting. And added more ads.

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#13

Post by m4x » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:14 PM UTC

Interesting question. I really don't know the answer

In real life, many of the people who are inclined to use an ad blocker are not the sort to click on ads anyway and are not providing advertisers with any significant revenue to lose. In fact it may save them a small amount by reducing server and bandwidth load.

I suspect that you would never see adblockers used everywhere as it simply isn't the case that everybody minds ads

However I'm still curious what people think would happen if the advertising giants had to dump advertising

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#14

Post by Felix21 » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:15 PM UTC

It flashed over my screen for a millisecond.

huh? what's that? a pop-under? did I turn ad-block off again?

2 days after their "publicity" campaign launched, things like...

"we have detected you using an ad-blocking service. Your wait time before this video plays has been increased"

...started to show up on various websites.

If "ad-blockers" become widely used, they will stop working effectively because the advertisers will have to make sure their ads are "seen".

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#15

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #10

We'll actually get to be the customers and pay for the things that interest us instead of being the product. I think this would be a huge improvement, personally.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#16

Post by gdulli » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

I used to wonder this, but eventually I figured out that most of the major browsers are controlled by players who profit from the ad tech ecosystem, and will ensure that ad blocking is always an opt-in option. A large majority will always use default settings.

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#17

Post by rickdale » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

When I listen to ESPN radio on the internet I have to do it in an incognito browser for it to work properly. The adblock program stops the site from running correctly, or the site is correctly not running.

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#18

Post by nonchalance » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

FYI: vanilla safari on iOS does not allow for ad blockers, and I wouldn't be surprised to see future devices prohibit them as well

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#19

Post by nonchalance » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:18 PM UTC

rickdale wrote: post #17

When I listen to ESPN radio on the internet I have to do it in an incognito browser for it to work properly. The adblock program stops the site from running correctly, or the site is correctly not running.

Ghostery recognizes BrightCove as a tracker, but services like amctv.com use it for video streaming. A similar thing might be happening there

Re: Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker?

#20

Post by kadabra9 » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

The content on the web could gradually begin to resemble an ad in and of itself. We're seeing this to an extent now in other forms of media, with the growth of (increasingly shameless) product placements, promotions, etc in movies and TV.