The adblocking revolution is months away • Hacker News Board

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#141

Post by patrickk » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:01 PM UTC

fluidcruft wrote: post #93

pjc50 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be a bad thing if it did trigger a more above-board means of both paying for content and producing content that people want to pay for. At the moment it's a clickbait race to the bottom. Also, bear in mind that we're having this discussion on an ad-free website.

HN has ads. They are rare (and mostly job postings), but they do exist.

Which job links are paid for on HN? That's news to me.

I have no problem with this actually, because such things are on a separate page and its obvious the content you are getting is relevant to you (unlike lots of online advertising). Good luck to pg and the devs and mods behind HN if they want to generate cash to keep the site going.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#142

Post by dublinben » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:02 PM UTC

AlexMuir wrote: post #79

I completely understand why people use Adblock - it improves the user experience. Ironically hiding adverts is a just a side-effect; the improvement comes from speeding up page loads, and cutting down on cpu usage and bandwidth use. (I install Adblock for my mother to stop her seeing scams, but that's another thing entirely.) I've spent the past week optimising How a Car Works for speed (mobile is 55% of our traffic…

>I can't trim it any further

It seems pretty obvious that you could reduce your page size by 70% by simply removing Google and Facebook scripts.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#143

Post by kazinator » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

gwu78 wrote: post #81

vilmosi wrote: post #5

The overall article is of good quality but it reeks of Apple bias I personally find distasteful. >>> User experience is what Apple puts above pretty much everything else, and they’ve decided that they don’t like it the experience available through the ad-supported web, and so they’re going to do something about it. The reason Apple does this is to push content creators away from the Web and into native apps. Apple ge…

I block "in-app" ads the same way I block "web" ads. Most ads use the same third party DNS services which makes blocking even easier.

Apps can be written to refuse to run if they can't fetch their ads. This can be baked into compiled code.

Apps can be written to download and cache ads periodically as part of their "update" process, and display these ads even when you don't have an internet connection. If they are not able to update these ads for some time (say 60 days), they can then refuse to run: "the application has expired and needs an update; please connect to the Internet". New ads are fetched when the user connects and lets the app update.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#144

Post by bargl » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

Yesterday I started looking for an ad blocker that would randomly click ads in some of the sites I visit so as not to punish the website for the ads they are adding. I couldn't find anything, does anyone know if that exits?

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#145

Post by 7952 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:04 PM UTC

lifty wrote: post #90

pjc50 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently the reason they're loaded separately in the first place is fraud detection. Bundling it into the page provides no easy way of independently verifying impressions.

Theoretically, you could shift the responsibility of displaying ads and tracking users to the publishers, with requirements to publish back to the ad networks granular information about every impression. The ad networks could then check for cheating by randomly accessing the publishing website to make sure all the requests are reported back by the publishers.

Or shift the responsibility for displaying content onto the ad network! At least the page might load more quickly if Google are serving it.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#146

Post by greghendershott » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:07 PM UTC

zubspace wrote: post #80

cognivore wrote: post #39

>> If the site generates the ad, it’s suddenly a lot harder to block. Seems to me that this is the loophole in the entire ad-block plan. Seems like it'd be relatively straightforward to make a system that pulls in the ads from various sources, brings them locally, and then displays them from the website's domain. Seems so obvious I'd think someone is already doing it.

What I would love to see is putting this whole advertising market into the hands of the webmasters. A system installed on the webserver, where the webmaster offers ad-space which can be bought directly by the advertiser. Ads will be hosted from the same url as the page. I believe, this could be a win-win situation for the website owner and the advertiser. - More revenue for websites - Better adds, because webmasters…

Yes, this seems to be the root of most of the problems described by OP and some comment threads here. In old school print ads, the publisher decides what is appropriate advertising for their readers. This needs to be possible for web site publishers, too. With status quo ad networks, AFAICT it's not possible.

It seems that ad networks are a necessary evil to match many small advertisers with many small web sites. (No revolutionary "disintermediation" here; quite the opposite.) The question with distributors is, which end do they feel they work for? Today's ad networks view advertisers as the customer to serve. Instead, although I don't know if it's economically viable, it seems like we need ad networks who view the web site publisher as a client to serve. And who give publishers the tools to accept only ads they deem appropriate in terms of content as well as ad tech.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#147

Post by antonmks » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

Could be a good idea for Windows 10 - blocking all ads by default, including those delivered through browsers. It could seriously affect and even kill many current and potential Microsoft competitors like Google and Facebook.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#148

Post by jaydz » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:11 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #37

Surely the overwhelming majority of ads delivered on mobile devices are in apps, and iOS9 won't block those as far as I understand. This will drive more content sites to develop their own apps (and presumably wind down their mobile web offering). It won't kill companies; it'll kill the web.

The web would become a second class citizen on iOS and native apps would be the only way to access content. Those cheering this have not thought this through.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#149

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:11 PM UTC

vinbreau wrote: post #135

TeMPOraL wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. If you, as a content provider, depend on such ads then I'm sorry, but your business deserves to die. I wonder how long it takes for people to learn that they can earn money by not being assholes to their customers?

AT least many vloggers are moving to Patreon or similar services. I've funded vloggers whose content I've enjoyed and I've seen many make a living that way. I think that's the modal we should shoot for. You build an audience and then you monetize that audience in non-intrusive ways.

Indeed, even my favourite blogger whose articles I enjoy moved to Patreon and I'm planning to budget money for him from next paycheck :). I'm much happier to support people this way than through ads.

I'll be very happy to pay for content now that I am an adult and earn money (there's a problem though; I owe my career in part thanks to a lot of free content I could use as a kid). But I suspect that prices will have to drop - the typical use pattern of the Internet is that of breadth, not depth. Myself I visit many dozen different sites daily, often different the next day than the day before. I derive value from all of them, but not enough to pay each of them a few dollars of monthly subscription.

Or maybe this will finally incentivize people to build their websites to attract and keep customers instead of clickbaiting and carpet-bombing with unwanted ads.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#150

Post by austerity » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #144

Yesterday I started looking for an ad blocker that would randomly click ads in some of the sites I visit so as not to punish the website for the ads they are adding. I couldn't find anything, does anyone know if that exits?

Why do you think punishing the advertisers is any better? They seem to be even less deserving of it.