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

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

#41

Post by pagefair »

Felix21 wrote: post #14

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 advertiser…

Ad blocking has already become widely used. Adblock Plus, the most popular ad block extension, reports over 150k downloads per day. Adblock (not affiliated with ABP) also reports over 20 million users. Adblocking in general is growing over 43% per year.

We aim to educate the internet about adblocking. You can read more here- http://blog.pagefair.com

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

#44

Post by pagefair »

rholdy wrote: post #2

People who create AdBlock software will sell out and strike deals with major advertisers to let certain ads through.

They've already started. Google has made a deal to regain some of the $887 million they lost last year alone due to adblocking.

You can read all about it here- http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/acceptable-ads-soothe-google-p...

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

#45

Post by lutusp »

metastart wrote: post #35

Subscription Models Could Emerge. There are already tens of millions of folks using ad blocking. Anti-ad-blocking technology is not difficult to implement. OKCupid had nice messages asking for donations to adblock users. Reddit thanks users for not blocking ads. I think that if adblocking grows, a system will come up where users pay a monthly fee to not see ads on content sites & that fee is distributed among the sit…

> I think that if adblocking grows, a system will come up where users pay a monthly fee to not see ads on content sites & that fee is distributed among the sites.

But that's a kind of ransom, and once established, the payments could only become larger. It would be like a government demanding tribute with no benefit to the payer, just so they won't invent a reason to throw you in jail. Oh, wait, that's already true. :)

Seriously though, if a pay-the-advertisers scheme were to be considered, wouldn't it make more sense to pay individual websites a subscription fee directly? That would be more efficient, and by being focused on specific sites it would improve the relation between quality content and income.

Obviously if a website had reliable subscribers, they could do away with the advertising. So could television and radio. I don't fully understand why this isn't the model, but I suspect it has something to do with people thinking they're getting something for nothing. But if we've learned anything from nature, it's that you only get nothing for nothing.

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

#46

Post by wutbrodo »

hrkristian wrote: post #28
_sabe_ wrote: post #22

Actually, the main reason I block ads is not because I can't stand ads, but because I don't want to be tracked and traced around the web, and also it turns out that as most of this ad-systems are based on extensive javascript and flash, blocking them makes most news sites load so much faster. There's a very easy way to solve this problem for websites, and that is to host the ads from the main site. That would make it…

I would be completely fine with ads on my main sites if they had some form of quality control over AdSense and the likes, or even better yet hosted their own ads like you said, but... tasteful. I hate flashing ads, I loathe sound, I'm irritated to no end by ads made to look like news articles or any ad that breaks good page formatting for the sake of exposure. However, unless browsers add ad-blockers by default I dou…

I haven't seen a flashing ad or a sound ad on anything but shady sites in _ages_. Garbage like Taboola which is all scam pitches designed to look like "Related Articles" is a different matter, but I've just blocked them directly in /etc/hosts.

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

#47

Post by sentenza »

austenallred wrote: post #32

The same thing that happened when TiVo let you skip TV commercials. If you're on ThePirateBay or are looking up song lyrics all the time you have good reason to use adblocker, but most ads sent intrusive enough for the average person to care about. Therefore there is no need for a tech arms race. Popups were extremely annoying and came with malware that was on almost everybody's computers. But I highly doubt Adblock…

My wife had her work computer infected with malware by an ad that was served on the main page of one of the biggest news oultets in Germany. That single instance reportedly caused thousands of infections. Since then I unconditionally recommend adblocking.

Also, if you are browsing the russian part of the internet, you should block everything you can (ads, js, flash).

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

#48

Post by pagefair »

hrkristian wrote: post #28
_sabe_ wrote: post #22

Actually, the main reason I block ads is not because I can't stand ads, but because I don't want to be tracked and traced around the web, and also it turns out that as most of this ad-systems are based on extensive javascript and flash, blocking them makes most news sites load so much faster. There's a very easy way to solve this problem for websites, and that is to host the ads from the main site. That would make it…

I would be completely fine with ads on my main sites if they had some form of quality control over AdSense and the likes, or even better yet hosted their own ads like you said, but... tasteful. I hate flashing ads, I loathe sound, I'm irritated to no end by ads made to look like news articles or any ad that breaks good page formatting for the sake of exposure. However, unless browsers add ad-blockers by default I dou…

We completely agree that loud, flashing, and pop up ads are intrusive and have no place on the internet.

As far as the majority of the internet, ad blocking extensions are getting easier and easier to use with a variety of browsers. AdBlock Plus reports 50k downloads per day on Chrome alone and 100k downloads per day on Firefox. Adblock Plus is also the most downloaded extension of all time. The issue seems to have already become mainstream.

If you're interested, you can read more about adblocking in our new report here- http://downloads.pagefair.com/reports/the_rise_of_adblocking...

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

#49

Post by ChristopherM »

danmaz74 wrote: post #36

That ads will be directly served from the same server where the content resides, and thus be indistinguishable from content?

I've wondered about this for the longest time, why not just embed the ads within the content so there's no way to "filter" it out? I've also thought that there is an opportunity for mobile ads, whenever the ads are blocked show a "default" built in ad. Sell these "default" ads to big companies as a block, for example Coca Cola. They never get tired of impressions, it's not like they need you to go to their website and look at an ad. Just seeing their logo reminds you of their product, and that's all they need to happen.
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