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The adblocking revolution is months away

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Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#191

Post by danielweber »

rayiner wrote: post #56
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…

It can be both. If people find the ad supported web unpleasant, doing the right thing for the user experience is also something that benefits their bottom line.

If people incorrectly assume that the alternative to "free with ads" is "free with no ads" then we will have a market failure.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#192

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

micampe wrote: post #101
Mikushi wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So looking at facts is a bias now? How about all the different ways Apple breaks the web for its own sake? Things like the HTTP Protocol are fundamentally broken by Apple, and this is not ok. They are a despicable company, a dragon only interested in increasing its cash reserves. I do not understand the support they are getting from the developer community, they shit on them constantly, make their life difficult, and…

> Things like the HTTP Protocol are fundamentally broken by Apple, and this is not ok. What do you mean?

An odd statement given it's Google who's been doing this the most recently (QUIC, SPDY).

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#193

Post by nine_k »

MadcapJake wrote: post #55
zodPod wrote: post #25

>>Of course, at this point we should step back and ask “why were the adverts there in the first place?” Oh yes, because they help pay for the content. In some – well, many, almost all – cases, they pay for all of the content. Honestly? I don't give a crap. Too many places have abused it and thrown stupid crap in just so they can make money. Just like the idiots who are careless with fireworks and then states ban them…

Like the New York Times....pretty sure they're not all "bullshit media rewriters" there. Expect a LOT more "Become a member" or "Subscribe to..." websites as adblockers become more popular.

With all my respect to quality media like NYT, I don't want a full-scale subscription. What I'd like is paying a few cents for a specific article in a hassle-free way.

Micropayments are hard because of the transaction costs, but this seems to slowly change (see e.g. flattr). I wish more sites offered a per-view zero-setup one-click micropayment solution.

What's more interesting is what Google will do if their ads revenue shrinks considerably — I suppose 99% of their income is targeted online context ads.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#194

Post by mikeash »

robmcm wrote: post #41
forgetsusername wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll bet Apple won't consider "Install from Apple Store" type messages as ads. " Which for me, is the worst kind. When you accidentally click an ad (sometimes unbeknownst to you) and suddenly the browser is closing and iTunes is opening, trying to get you to install Game of War... That said, if ad-blocking works on iOS, I think much of what he writes comes true. It will be interesting.

Please remember that Apple has only said they will support plugins for Safari, no direct mention of ad blocking. If there is ad blocking it will be provided by a third party. If it is then it will be up to the third party if they want to block this kind of advert. By their nature however "install banners" are typically part of the content (if it's for the site's own application) so a typical ad blocker wouldn't catch…

Install banners are built in to the browser, and just show metadata provided by the site. I strongly doubt they will be blockable.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#195

Post by cognivore »

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…

That's excellent, I like it!

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#196

Post by adamlett »

hiou wrote: post #130
Luc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, aren't your comments as much an example of Apple bias as what you're commenting on, but with the sign reversed?

If you look at moves made by Apple in the iPhone era it becomes quite clear and does not require bias. - Ban flash. Biggest competition to native apps. - Cripple the iOS web browser just enough that web apps trying to have native style performance will struggle. - Release their own map to push Google out of their ecosystem. When that didn't work now they are trying this. Apple's business model is pretty simple. Aquir…

> Ban flash. Biggest competition to native apps.

Well, except native apps didn't exist when the iPhone launched and Steve Jobs was famously opposed to them.

> Cripple the iOS web browser just enough that web apps trying to have native style performance will struggle.

If you think that, you should watch this https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2015/?id=501

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#197

Post by dhimes »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #98
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…

That's very considerate of you, thank you. I just clicked an ad on your page as a reward :). I don't think people are really bothered that there are ads - everyone learns at some point that under current system, people need to earn money to live and websites cost money to keep them up. The problem is with a) the amount of ads, b) obnoxiousness of them, and c) that quite a lot are actually dishonest, annoying and down…

I don't mind ads. I hate the tracking. I either want a market solution to it, or, failing that, I want it outlawed.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#198

Post by interpol_p »

e40 wrote: post #167
Steko wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason Apple does this is to push content creators away from the Web and into native apps. This is baloney, Apple hosts free apps at a loss. The idea that Apple wants you to have an app for every website is absolutely ridiculous. Safari is one of the most used iOS apps today and will be so for at least the better part of the next decade. > Bullshit. They have their own advertising network they want to push. iAd…

iAds is a rounding error on Apple's business. It may be now, but I'll bet they don't think it will be in the future.

I doubt it will be around in the future. Apple introduced iAds because they wanted better (i.e., less tacky) mobile ads. Recall their initial messaging around iAds: we design your ads, extremely costly initial ad buys, only big brands. They even enabled WebGL just for iAd.

Unfortunately banner ads are tacky no matter what.

iAds was all about making the rising-in-popularity (at the time) free, ad-supported apps less horrid. Increasing the perceived quality of their platform, and selling more hardware.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#199

Post by Tinyyy »

kazinator wrote: post #143
gwu78 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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;…

I can also not use these kinda apps lol. Whats the point of putting in all these features to stop people if it merely results in an uninstall?

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#200

Post by thescrewdriver »

danielweber wrote: post #190
thescrewdriver wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long will this revolution last if content providers decide to not show content to iOS users? Which begs the question: How long will content providers last if they decide to not show content to iOS users?

Someone has to pay the bills. It's conceivable that the iOS users are all loss-leaders telling their non-ad-blocking friends to read the article, but that's kind of stretching it.

I'm sure Facebook and Google will land on their feet.
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