101–110 of 226 posts
Putting aside the morality/ethics discussion for a moment, it seems to me that the 'cheese' is moving for content publishers and so they are left with a choice, change and find new cheese - or stay and starve. Either way, the current gnashing of teeth will have little effect.
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More extremely, I flat out refuse consumerist society whenever possible. None of us needs to be manipulated into buying most of the things ads try to manipulate us to buy. Yet, you are consuming someone else's writing as a minimum. I have taken ads off most of my websites and added a tipping option. I hope that turns out to be successful. I currently don't get enough traffic for it to support me outright. Most people…
How about, as a start, an ad industry that voluntarily and transparently (e.g, using open source software and business contracts) restricts itself to displaying ads that (a) do not directly impinge upon the browsing/reading experience, and (b) do not track?
I'm curious why, in all the outrage and handwringing about ad blockers and the future of the Web, nobody ever seriously suggests making ads less annoying.
We don't need a new monetization model. We need content providers, and by extension advertising providers, to refuse to carry ads that are wildly intrusive, CPU-intensive, or outright fraudulent ("one weird trick"). Seriously, why are major national news outlets carrying advertisements that are as sketchy as those X-Ray Specs ads from old Boy's Life magazines?
Much like newspapers, you've hitched your wagons to problematic revenue streams. I wish it were easier, but as content creators you are also businesses, and you need to work on better ways to support yourselves. That's your responsibility, not mine. I do support content creators directly quite often and quite a lot in many different ways (merch, crowdfunding, direct support such as patreon, volunteer labour, etc). If you can't survive in a world full of "me"s, well I suspect you weren't trying very hard.
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The Verge has a poll going today asking if you use an ad blocker: "Yes, I want free content and I'll pay the ad blockers" and "No, I want free content and I'll pay the publisher through ads". I'm with you. I didn't use an ad blocker for years. Then I installed a flash blocker because it kept my computer from trying to melt it's self and play video ads while I was trying to read. Then we started to get so many ads tha…
Why does one of those responses assume that you have to pay for an ad blocker? I've never heard of such a thing.
I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…
There is not. There are, however, many even worse ways to finance the web, as the article says.
Money has to come from somewhere. Either you the reader pay for content--which users have proven overwhelmingly unwilling to do--or your advertising views pay for content. I don't like it either, but polite, non-disruptive ads are the best possible solution. We need to push content and advertising provides to insult on those and only those.
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The Verge has a poll going today asking if you use an ad blocker: "Yes, I want free content and I'll pay the ad blockers" and "No, I want free content and I'll pay the publisher through ads". I'm with you. I didn't use an ad blocker for years. Then I installed a flash blocker because it kept my computer from trying to melt it's self and play video ads while I was trying to read. Then we started to get so many ads tha…
Why does one of those responses assume that you have to pay for an ad blocker? I've never heard of such a thing.
The Verge is also no doubt trying to make the poll more divisive with this phrasing, given where their revenue comes from.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/18/9351233/poll-ad-blocking-y...
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>you can lobby your local city or state to pass laws against obnoxious billboards, but at some point it is someone else's property Such bans are completely possible and within the rights of a local jurisdiction - they're just extremely rare and not something society generally seems to care about. In actuality, branding and advertising is engrained in our culture. I hear friends talk about their favorite ads all the t…
I guess that you're right, mostly. Initiatives to pass city laws against advertising do exist, though [1]. I don't live in Grenoble so i cannot comment on how this plays out in practice, but i wish all cities would do that. 1. http://www.euronews.com/2014/11/26/grenoble-europe-s-first-a...
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But websites don't ask for my consent before they show me ads, and I have no idea what they expect the "price" of an article to be before I click on it, nor what I'll be getting in return. Why does the author of an article have a unilateral right to decide the terms of exchange? Websites are able to detect most ad-blockers these days. If they like, they're welcome to deny me access to their content if they see I've b…
I am not suggesting they should have a unilateral right. I am asking for suggestions on how to solve this so that content producers can get paid without posting ads, something no one has yet to really respond to. The Internet has created a situation that did not previously exist. It is natural that we don't automatically know what the solution is.
Ad blocking is interesting in that it shows what happens when something that probably should be regulated has not. And because of this the public trust has eroded and then the answer has become an arms race of ad blockers vs ads. Resulting in a downward spiral resulting in less quality content. The world of online advertising is a fantastic way to study the possible downsides of no regulations.
Well, or it's a powerful illustration of a market finding a solution to a new, novel problem. After all, what solution would the government put in place? Ban ads? Regulate their content? How would that be more optimal than allowing people in the market to find the right solutions? The reality is, ad supported content with lots and lots and lots of content providers may simply not be tenable, due to the fragmentation…
Where I think regulations do make sense is for advertising by-product: the enormous treasure trove of data about users that is collected and stored who-knows-where and has who-knows-what done to it.