11–20 of 73 posts
How do I Adblock this pagefair thing?
Adblock and do-not-track request should be promoted as much as possible.
We think (@pagefair) it's clear that adblock is being promoted just fine by word of mouth. It's the ad industry that's got to change somehow. We're trying to be part of that. What's shocking to us is how the ad industry mostly doesn't even recognise how fast adblock is growing. To them, it just looks like more people have switched off their PCs, because they just can't see that segment of the audience anymore. Theref…
How do I Adblock this pagefair thing?
It's easy. If you ever see one of our ads, you can permanently opt out using the close button. We're working hard not to show the kinds of ads that most adblock users would want to block. We currently have < 1% opt outs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To them, it just looks like more people have switched off their PCs That's a really interesting comment. I don't think people are moving away from laptops (desktops maybe) anywhere near as quickly as I so often hear. Anecdotally, almost everyone I know uses predominantly laptops for their computing/browsing needs. They almost all also use Adblock.
I think you are on to something. If you are "savy" internet user, you probably hang a bit longer on the desktop than the average population because you are also a power user. If you are a "casual" internet user, mainly checking some social site status, etc, using a mobile is enough. Or to say otherwise, prosumer vs consumer. And it is more likely that you will use an adblocker if you belong to the first part of the p…
Having said that, I don't know a single person who doesn't at least use a laptop every other day or so. Most of my friends have smartphones, but I don't know anyone who relies on that as their only access point for online services.
Adblock and do-not-track request should be promoted as much as possible.
We think (@pagefair) it's clear that adblock is being promoted just fine by word of mouth. It's the ad industry that's got to change somehow. We're trying to be part of that. What's shocking to us is how the ad industry mostly doesn't even recognise how fast adblock is growing. To them, it just looks like more people have switched off their PCs, because they just can't see that segment of the audience anymore. Theref…
I personally loathe advertising. When watching YouTube videos on my phone, where I can't use Adblock, I actively mute and set the phone aside during ads that can't be skipped, or that I choose to let play to support the content creator. Then I come back 30 seconds later to view the content I wanted.
I recently switched to using Firefox on mobile because it's the only mobile browser I'm aware of with an Adblock plugin. I put up with mobile advertising for several years--I understand that's how web content creators get paid in 2014, even if I think it's a crummy business model. But advertisers crossed the line when my phone started talking about construction contractors at me out loud. Instantly switched to Firefox, installed Adblock, and didn't look back. Advertisers have no one to blame but themselves for the rise of Adblock.
Sorry, advertisers, but your ilk are simply too scummy to put up with. You abuse otherwise valuable technology, you waste my time and bandwidth, you manipulate feelings and entire cultures, and you convince people to buy crap that is useless and often actively harmful. I'm done with advertisers and I hope Adblock hastens their demise. Content creators will figure out a different business model without your horseshit.
This post became progressively more angry the more I thought about advertisers :)
You do not show how much of the decline in ad revenue is caused by adoption of adblock, or even whether the amount of decline attributable to adblock is significant or measurable. You merely point out that revenue has declined and that adblock adoption has increased.
EDIT to add: You show no data on adblock adoption that covers the same time span as your graph of revenue. Your proxy for adbock use covering this timeframe, Google searches, shows a distinctly dissimilar pattern from the revenue graph for the same period. You claim a "correlation" but don't calculate one. You fail to demonstrate anything about causation.
Now look at the ads-what are they for? Virus laden websites/fake installers. This is for a major keyword-why is Google allowing their ad pool to be poisoned by such bad/misleading ads?
In the past people's computers would get trashed from popups and malicious web pages, but today most of the junk filled computers I see have the same story 'I was looking for xxx on Google and I clicked the first link and then a bunch of stuff started popping up...'
When Google, the biggest 'best' ad provider in the industry, is polluting computers like this, why shouldn't people run Adblock?
Malicious advertising is probably the biggest driver of AdBlock Plus growth. Anecdotally, we just had another customer get hit by a remote computer service scam because she searched for something like "canon ink technical support", and an ad was listed at the top with an 800 number that she called without realizing that it wasn't Canon at all.
Google does its best to differentiate its ads from its search results as little as possible. A lot of less savvy computer users never even notice the little "Ad" tag; I had to point it out to her. In Yahoo's case, it's even worse -- the difference between the pile of ads at the top of their page and their search results is so subtle it even took me a moment to figure it out.
And then there's saturation. Advertising is everywhere now. Magazines spend as much print area on advertising as content; television is down to, what, 10 minutes of ads for every 20 minutes of content, or worse; radio, if you're silly enough to still listen to that, is hilariously bad; news sites and publications are experimenting with "sponsored content" -- ads that more and more closely resemble regular articles -- billboards, bulk mailing, text messages, robocalls, and email spam all add to the load.
On the whole, the ad industry ends up feeling skeezy, pushy, and overwhelming.
So AdBlock Plus gives users a way to remove all of that from one part of their daily life. I don't think we've ever had a negative response from a user when showing them AdBlock Plus for the first time; the usual response when reloading yahoo.com or msn.com with AB+ is, "oh, wow, that's really nice."
I keep expecting to hear that the bottom's fallen out of online advertising.