Adblocking: How about Nah? • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#101

Post by intopieces » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

wybiral wrote: post #67

I don't actually want to block ads. If you want to put a small text or image blurb anywhere on the page... Good for you. I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash. But these companies are intentionally blurring the lines between advertisement and digital surveillance. You don't need to collect everything about my operating system, browser, monitors, GPU, every click I ma…

> I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash.

Why do you feel like your attention should be for sale? There should be no advertising on the web. Content should be free or cost money, and the cost should be transparent. Advertisements are just socially accepted psychological manipulation. We can do better.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#102

Post by wybiral » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

jplayer01 wrote: post #86

wybiral wrote: post #67

I don't actually want to block ads. If you want to put a small text or image blurb anywhere on the page... Good for you. I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash. But these companies are intentionally blurring the lines between advertisement and digital surveillance. You don't need to collect everything about my operating system, browser, monitors, GPU, every click I ma…

Yes, agreed. Ads are a great way to finance things where there is value in being accessible by everybody - I'm not happy about seeing podcast episodes locked behind Patreon walls, for example. While it's great these creators are gaining an additional revenue stream, it still means I or others are priced out of accessing their content. I don't have any natural right to access it, of course, but I prefer the open acces…

Podcasts are a great example. They've had to do advertising the old fashion way, by market research and trying to figure out which ad campaigns are more effective without mass surveillance.

Often they use the strategy of widespread name recognition, which is why you can probably think of a mattress brand, and a recruiting platform off the top of your head. That's effective advertisement without tracking.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#103

Post by brighter2morrow » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

gigatexal wrote: post #65

i'm on a vpn that blocks ad networks no software in my browser is needed

Which VPN is that?

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#104

Post by jbverschoor » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

We’ve made full circle again. Were back in 1999. Tons of ads pace being bought with clickfraud (facebook). Zillions of scripts etc, when all you want is someone to put a text link + a pitch which is relevant to the page (current search, current article, type of content in the video), not the user.

Problem is they can’t. Publishers earn through the massive amount a low quality traffic, bots, and even misreporting impressions and clicks.

I want ads, if they’re relevant.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#105

Post by chacha2 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

cblum wrote: post #87

ori_b wrote: post #25

Something is different in the arms race this time. Browser development is almost exclusively funded by advertising. Chrome, in the obvious way. Mozilla is funded entirely by Google. Safari is the only surviving exception.

> Mozilla is funded entirely by Google. Do you have a source for that?

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2016/

> Mozilla Foundation philanthropic programs and activities are funded by public support from individual donors and foundations ($13.8M), as well as from royalties earned that are paid by the Mozilla Corporation ($8.3M). Total revenue and income support to the Mozilla Foundation in CY 2016 was $23.4M.

> The majority of Mozilla Corporation’s revenue is from royalties earned through Firefox web browser search partnerships and distribution deals around the world. Mozilla Corporation’s revenue and income support for CY 2016 was $506M

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2500712/google-to-pay-...

> Google to pay Mozilla $300M yearly in new search deal, says report

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#106

Post by chucksmash » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

Swenrekcah wrote: post #80

fiblye wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those really new models? People’ve been subscribing to newspapers forever, and HBO has been a subscription service.

I guess they mean purely via subscriptions. But of course Netflix also uses product placement and probably sells all your viewing and behavioural habits as well.

Definitely product placement going on.

I'd be surprised to hear they were selling viewing data though. A few years ago, they were making a lot of noise about how that data gave them a unique way to make decisions on what content to produce that other studios lacked. Seems like the kind of thing you'd hold close if that were the case.

When you search, it's also clear they have shadow profiles for content they don't have (e.g. before they had Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they'd autocomplete to "Things like Monty Python and the Holy Grail" pretty early in the autocomplete results). I wonder how heavily that search data is weighted in deciding how much to offer to license existing content.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#107

Post by inferiorhuman » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

Marsymars wrote: post #91

schoen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only example I know is São Paulo (not in Europe). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

There are several US states (Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont) that don't allow billboard advertisements.

Some cities in California place heavy restrictions on billboards: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Supreme-Court-turns-d...

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#108

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #96

For many many years I resisted installing an ad-blocker. As someone who worked at a website that made the bulk of it's revenue from ads, it felt hypocritical, and also, I wanted to make sure that the experience of our website was bearable without ad blocking, by forcing myself to experience it every day. I gave up about two years ago. The web just go so bad I had to install ad-block. My computer would spin like a jet…

Yeah, for many years I figured "Let the website owners make money, I get to use their service for free anyway, and I can always mentally tune the ads out."

And then sometime around 2015 or 2016, I started noticing ads that would lock up my CPU, or get my laptop's fan running, or prevent the page from loading entirely, or increase page loading time by 10x. And then I decided enough was enough, and installed an adblocker.

It's not the general concept of advertising that I object to. It's when the advertising makes the content that I initially came to see unusable. Fix your goddamn Javascript and maybe I won't block you, although at this point I'm kinda enjoying the ad-free experience.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#109

Post by xeeeeeeeeeeenu » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #99

tempodox wrote: post #29

It's somewhat ironic that this page contains the most impressive procession of banner ads that I've seen in a long while. And almost all of them keep changing every thirty seconds or so. Apparently I've been successful in systematically avoiding sites that would torture me like that. They may succeed once but only at the price that they won't see me again.

The EFF site is full of ads on your machine?!? That doesn’t sound right (and disabling ad block doesn’t cause it to serve any to me, unless you count the mailing list signup form after the article). I’d guess that you are looking at a different page or your machine is compromised.

Originally the post was linking to boingboing.net, only later it was changed to EFF.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#110

Post by wybiral » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

intopieces wrote: post #101

wybiral wrote: post #67

I don't actually want to block ads. If you want to put a small text or image blurb anywhere on the page... Good for you. I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash. But these companies are intentionally blurring the lines between advertisement and digital surveillance. You don't need to collect everything about my operating system, browser, monitors, GPU, every click I ma…

> I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash. Why do you feel like your attention should be for sale? There should be no advertising on the web. Content should be free or cost money, and the cost should be transparent. Advertisements are just socially accepted psychological manipulation. We can do better.

That's a completely different discussion though. Personally I'm not offended by seeing a brand placement if it helps the content creator and is transparent (meaning I know it's an ad, and it's not collecting data about me).

Bringing it to a physical example, if I walk into a store and see a product placement or physical sign advertisement, I'm not that offended by it. But if they started fingerprinting me and taking my picture under the premise of selling me more stuff... I'm offended by that.