Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking • Hacker News Board

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#11

Post by aluhut » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:41 AM UTC

> We fear that in the near future many websites will start to disappear just because their maintenance will no longer be profitable, and no one wants to give away money from their own pockets in order to sustain their website.

I hear that since Webwasher. And today, with better AdBlocking tools, additional costs for hosts, the Internet is still there.

From time to time even I get weak and think about the way I block ads. Then I just launch my IE at work and there is no doubt about it: this is not the Internet I want to see.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#12

Post by z92 » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:47 AM UTC

avian wrote: post #10

> no one wants to give away money from their own pockets in order to sustain their website. Interestingly, some of the best content on the web (in my opinion) can be found on websites that do not have ads. They are maintained by people genuinely interested in a topic and have a passion for sharing knowledge. I'm not saying that gift economy works for everyone, but there certainly are people that are willing to pay fr…

Plus, with all the copycat sites gone, stopping ads is more likely to make the web a better place, overall.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#13

Post by fredleblanc » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:47 AM UTC

I'm OK with sites blocking content for those using ad blockers. That seems like a fair balance, and if the content being blocked truly is that important to me, it's a one click disable to give in, or I can probably find a similar story elsewhere. (Though most of the time I don't really care that much to do either.)

I've found that using uBlock origin I don't only block ads, I virtually redesign pages. I remove share buttons, I remove elements I never use on sites I visit frequently. Maybe I'm addicted to simplifying the web in my own image.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#14

Post by tptacek » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:54 AM UTC

avian wrote: post #10

> no one wants to give away money from their own pockets in order to sustain their website. Interestingly, some of the best content on the web (in my opinion) can be found on websites that do not have ads. They are maintained by people genuinely interested in a topic and have a passion for sharing knowledge. I'm not saying that gift economy works for everyone, but there certainly are people that are willing to pay fr…

Many of the best of those sites rely on reporting from other sites that are ad-supported. You can get excellent analysis for free, but you usually can't get wide-ranging on-the-ground reporting that way.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#15

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:54 AM UTC

avian wrote: post #10

> no one wants to give away money from their own pockets in order to sustain their website. Interestingly, some of the best content on the web (in my opinion) can be found on websites that do not have ads. They are maintained by people genuinely interested in a topic and have a passion for sharing knowledge. I'm not saying that gift economy works for everyone, but there certainly are people that are willing to pay fr…

[deleted]

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#16

Post by bildung » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:55 AM UTC

fredleblanc wrote: post #13

I'm OK with sites blocking content for those using ad blockers. That seems like a fair balance, and if the content being blocked truly is that important to me, it's a one click disable to give in, or I can probably find a similar story elsewhere. (Though most of the time I don't really care that much to do either.) I've found that using uBlock origin I don't only block ads, I virtually redesign pages. I remove share…

> I've found that using uBlock origin I don't only block ads, I virtually redesign pages. I remove share buttons, I remove elements I never use on sites I visit frequently. Maybe I'm addicted to simplifying the web in my own image.

Yeah, I find sites like ebay or amazon barely usable without blocking away the fluff.

But I wonder whether that information (blocked non-ad content) is of use for these companies? I could even imagine some companies would pay for access to the (anonymized) data. Granted, that ad blocker usage pattern is probably too obscure (i.e. too few non-geeks do it) to draw reliable conclusions about the general population.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#17

Post by onion2k » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 11:57 AM UTC

The obvious solution as far as the ad networks are concerned is to proxy their adverts through the website that's displaying them. A website owner signs up to adnetwork.com, installs a node/PHP/whatever app on their server, and adverts are sent to that app and relayed on to the user's browser. As the ads come from the same domain as all the other content for the website they'll be virtually impossible to block. The reason this hasn't happened in the past is because shared web hosting would have made it difficult; as more and more sites move to virtual servers it'll get easier. Eventually it'll be a one-click install from a browser when you set up Wordpress or Ghost.

This means they'll load more slowly, they'll be harder to get around, and we will have absolutely no way to see who is actually tracking us any more.

Much as I dislike adverts on websites, the alternative to the way they're sent now is far worse.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#18

Post by untothebreach » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 12:03 PM UTC

aDevilInMe wrote: post #9

If you produce content, no one is willing to pay for it and your only source of income for it is adverts then I say your business model is flawed and good riddance to you.

I don't disagree with you, but just from a devil's advocate point of view, some would argue that by using ads to pay for the content, it allows the content to get to those people who couldn't have afforded to pay for it themselves.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#19

Post by GreaterFool » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 12:09 PM UTC

One benefit of ad blocking is that ads do not need to be downloaded.

Once websites start blocking ad blockers the other option is to download the ads but not display them.

That of course will lead to ads getting "smarter" (well, more annoying; they will have to figure out whether they're being watched).

Fast forward into the future and we'll have eye tracking software that will make sure you see the ad :)

It's going to be an arms race.

Re: Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking

#20

Post by djrconcepts » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 12:13 PM UTC

Display ads are not the problem. The problem is with ads used to track, follow, and target users while surfing the web. Ads are becoming web stalkers that follow us around the internet. How will showing 1 ad per page prevent tracking, following, and targeting?