Ad networks - if you have shown a heavy flash banner 10 times in a row and I haven't click on it, please get the hint and stop pushing it, I won't click it on the 11th time. Today I'm talking about a blue banner with a developer with his saliva dripping on his desk.
Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
41–50 of 66 posts
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#42So many comments on this thread parrot the notion that people will just pay for the things that they love, but the math there rarely, if ever, ads up. The fact of the matter is that outside a few exceptions advertising makes more money than charging to use a product or relying on donations. And revenue is necessary not only for servers, but for man hours and ability of the creators to concentrate. No one can pretend…
While this is all true and I agree in most respects. I think it behooves the ad sellers to make their ads less obnoxious so that people would be less interested in blocking them.
Or if someone were to start making a program that blocks known bad advertisers but not others. Perhaps blocking everything that isn't text based (all flash/etc ads) so I could still get advertisements but not have to worry about Punching the monkey/kim kardashian/bush/obama/etc.
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#43There are so many problems with ads that I cannot in good conscience offer any other advice than "block 'em all." • Ad networks can be, and are, used as a malware distribution vector. No one is vetting all the ads. Not the publishers, not the networks. • They slow everything down. AdBlock and Ghostery make web browsing faster. Not to mention waiting 30s to watch a youtube video, or worse yet to realize that you didn'…
I take a carrot and stick approach to encouraging online and mobile business to stop displaying ads in favor of charging viewers. I take the paid, ad-free option, if one is available (carrot). If not, then I'm running Adblock, so I use the site anyway (stick).
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#44I don't agree with the conclusion that adblocking is leading to Upworthy style pap articles... Those are engineered for a social media world, to cut through short timelines and attention spans. The ad content is largely unchanged from any other low quality media source. Just like all the low quality how-to pages that were/are churned out to catch long-tail searches when that was the easier meat. In a few years trends…
You make an interesting point about the evolution of advertising online... It makes me think of the situation with the recording industry and record sales/pirating.
It seems to me the advertisers are just 'screaming and yelling' that their old business model isn't working anymore and trying as hard as they can not to innovate or 'keep up with the times'.
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#45well Ads are what keeping the internet alive in a very generic sense. The free services we enjoy like google, youtube, twitter, online new sites, are free because of the ads. Blocking them all is like discouraging people to actually produce good content, for eg youtube video creators get a share of money earned by youtube through ads on the video's page, what do you think happens when you watch the video by blocking all the ads? It doesnt affect youtube that much but it makes alot of difference for the creator.
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They slow everything down. AdBlock and Ghostery make web browsing faster. Not to mention waiting 30s to watch a youtube video, or worse yet to realize that you didn't actually want to watch it. Understandable, but um, if you didn't have those ads, you wouldn't have YouTube. Oh pay for it? Who's gonna pay to watch stupid videos online? Nobody. Ads are important. Without them, you'll be paying a membership fee to eve…
> Without them, you'll be paying a membership fee to every site you visit regularly. I, for one, would be happy to. I'd honestly pay a monthly fee to watch Youtube. I don't use it only for cat videos, I also use it to find new music from artists I've never heard of, watch recordings of concerts I've been to just to relive the moments and so on. If Youtube would let me pay to make those ads go away, I'd do so without…
Judging by the huge bitchfest by users complaining because they have to pay $5 a month for Xbox Live Gold just to pay $9 a month to watch Netflix on it, people won't want to pay for their internet connection, and membership fee to the hundreds of sites on line.
Yeah the internet would be better, because nobody but the people who can afford to pay for it would be on... You'd have to have a full time job just to pay the fees to your handful of favorite sites you visit.
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#47Using Adblock is unethical. There, I said it despite it not being a popular opinion in these circles. The publishers make few cents by showing you ads and you rob them of that opportunity by blocking ads. If you feel so strongly about blocking ads please reach out to the webmaster of every site you visit offering a donation. Can't do that? Then put up with the ads.
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They slow everything down. AdBlock and Ghostery make web browsing faster. Not to mention waiting 30s to watch a youtube video, or worse yet to realize that you didn't actually want to watch it. Understandable, but um, if you didn't have those ads, you wouldn't have YouTube. Oh pay for it? Who's gonna pay to watch stupid videos online? Nobody. Ads are important. Without them, you'll be paying a membership fee to eve…
This is not true, sites did just fine before the advent of ads, and were actually useful. Some kinds of advertising online aren't even obnoxious, and that's fine too. For the obnoxious stuff? We can mostly do without. If we drive them to bankruptcy even faster with adblocking, all the better! ;-)
Have you ever wondered what YouTube's bill is monthly just to give you that content for free?
I come from a group of people who run some of the biggest video based sites online, yes people want to watch these stupid videos for free, hundreds of thousands of daily visitors... One guy I know pays $1500/mo just to give stupid 30 second clips to his visitors with nothing but a few ads on the site to support it. No ads? Say bye to these sites, because nobody is gonna work a full time job to give you 30 second cat videos with no compensation at all.
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#49This kind of butthurt posts pop up regularly since browser customisations became popular. The main objection is almost always towards users' freedom of choice of software to view web content. It is frightening them that some users with technical ability and will share a solution with others who lack those, often with no strings attached and free of charge, thus preventing people whose livelihoods depend on advertisements to easily dictate how anyone must consume their content. They want to limit my software choices. They want to regulate existing software. They want to decide what I get to see on the screen. Yet when they face resistance, they bring up bullshit arguments such as their content is central to the existence of the internet against all the evidence on the contrary all the while building their businesses on the software built by people who have been succesfully upholding principles such as freedom and decentralisation. No amount of sugar coating will make their arguments pallatable for purveyors of software for freedom and choice thus their feeble attemps will continue. Only way for them to win is to eliminate general purpose computing which is already struggling to some degree in the hands of our oh so totally not evil that icame darlings. If you have read this far, there is a high chance you already know how to navigate marketing bullshit and you don't need my advice anyway.
I will continue to block, and suggest anyone who listens the same, every shit someone else want me to see or run against my wishes for the health of my profession if for nothing else.
Re: Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Without them, you'll be paying a membership fee to every site you visit regularly. I, for one, would be happy to. I'd honestly pay a monthly fee to watch Youtube. I don't use it only for cat videos, I also use it to find new music from artists I've never heard of, watch recordings of concerts I've been to just to relive the moments and so on. If Youtube would let me pay to make those ads go away, I'd do so without…
Judging by the huge bitchfest by users complaining because they have to pay $5 a month for Xbox Live Gold just to pay $9 a month to watch Netflix on it, people won't want to pay for their internet connection, and membership fee to the hundreds of sites on line. Yeah the internet would be better, because nobody but the people who can afford to pay for it would be on... You'd have to have a full time job just to pay th…
You'd not be paying for every site you want to watch. Only those that are most important to you. Also, not everybody using the site would be paying.
If content is supposed to be available to paying and non-paying users, then maybe (in the case of youtube)the payout to content creators would be determined by the upvotes of the paying customers only.