What the ad blocker debate reveals • Hacker News Board

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#101

Post by moron4hire » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:20 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #88

kawsper wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to subscribe to a danish newspaper online (their online version), and I couldn't even pay by creditcard. These companies really live in the past.

Don't try to use credit cards with the "grew up in the great depression" generation. Pull a graph of percentage of the population participating by individual age, and the graph of newspapers looks like pro sports or nightly network news, the majority crossover age is around fifty years old. Something like 80% of people over 70 subscribe to a newspaper and watch major league baseball, and for people under 30 the perce…

People in their 50s today were born in the late 1950s, early 1960s, which is not anywhere near growing up in the Great Depression. If you grew up during the Great Depression, you were born in the early 1920s. That'd make you 90+ years old today. 90+ year olds only account for about half a percent of the population (http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf). 99.4% of the population doesn't remember the Great Depression as a real thing.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#102

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:20 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #78

hibikir wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a Tragedy of the Commons situation: When we block ads, we do it relatively aggressively, so those that implement advertising in an acceptable way get crushed anyway. You are either using ads people don't see, or doing terrible things like many Minecraft mods, often downloaded by kids, and hosted at a particularly nasty site where the obvious download link gives you malware. To block horrible things like that, we…

Except the Tragedy of the Common requires a depletable resource of some kind, and unfettered access to it for people who have a vested interest in protecting their own supply but not the supply of others. That is not online content one whit. My use of the WaPo does not in any way impact another users use, certainly not to the degree that WaPo is loading down my bandwidth with extra code and content above and beyond w…

Tragedy of the Commons just requires sufficient negative externality; depletable shared resource is an example of a source of such externality, but not the only form it can take.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#103

Post by JoshTriplett » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #60

Let me start off by saying I have clicked (on purpose) on less than 10 ads in my whole life. It's to the point that I have what can best be described as "Ad Blindness", I don't even see them anymore. So much so that sometimes I think I've reached the end of an article because my eyes have determined that below is only ads only to find it's an ad in the middle of the content or actually part of the article (Just to re…

> there are no browser extensions on mobile

Not on iOS. Firefox on Android has extensions.

> I do not religiously ready many sites and the ones I do don't offer subscription models. I'd much rather PAY some monthly fee that is divvied up between the sites I actually visit over the course of a month. There are a number of service that have attempted this (Flattr being on the top of my head) but none have made it seamless.

Lately I'm a big fan of Patreon, and an increasing number of the folks whose work I enjoy use it.

If there are sites, channels, or any regular content you enjoy, and they don't have a subscription mechanism, send them a mail and ask them about adding one.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#104

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #81

TeMPOraL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason they're not on a subscription business model is probably because that wouldn't be sustainable for 99% of the sites you use. I say, let them die then. It's not that we need those sites but don't want to pay. It's that various "enterprising" folks figure that they can make some "content", fill them with ads and get passive income. If those 99% of sites disappeared overnight, everyone would likely be better…

I think that's a false dichotomy. Certainly, there are sites that we could do without; there's clickbait-filled garbage that does nothing but pollute the Internet. But there's also a lot of really good stuff out there that is supported by ads. Stuff that people put their heart and soul and a lot of effort into, and stuff that I (and probably you) love to read, that wouldn't make it without ads. I can count the number…

There is, but I think all they'd have to do to get money is ask nicely. I have high hopes for Patreon as a platform for that. They could also ask nicely to whitelist the site in ad blocker, promising they won't abuse it. I've seen a site that does that and happily complied because hey, I get it, they need the money and I do get some value from their services.

The reason people block ads is not because they don't want publishers to get paid. It's because most ads are actively user-hostile, ranging from merely fucking annoying to malware vectors which can cost you a lot of money. Quoting 'jacquesm from other subthread, "Browsing the web without an adblocker is like sex with multiple partners every day without a condom.". [0].

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9995396

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#105

Post by bigbugbag » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

Donzo wrote: post #5

Publishers have done this to themselves with obstrusive intersitals; slow, over-the-content pop-ups; autoplaying video and audio ads; and other extremely annoying and degrading ad implementations. They have destroyed the browsing experience. If publishers were more ethical with their implementations of advertising technologies, fewer people would be driven to use ad-blocking.

The kind of ads is one thing, but to me the underlying issue is that I don't want to be tracked and online advertising is all about tracking people.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#106

Post by danr4 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #51

danr4 wrote: post #2

It's rather simple in my mind. Putting your content up for free is the same as standing by my fence, waiting for me to ask you to throw your magazine over so I could read it. You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience. Don't want me to cut out the ads? tough luck, my reading experience, my choice. Want to make money? try a subscription model. Why can't you have both? Welcome to…

This comment rubs me in the wrong way. Content creators aren't "putting it up for free" - they're putting it up with ads attached. They're certainly not "throwing it over your fence." They're not injecting their articles into your browser, you're going to a URL to request them. You seek the content out. So, you go to a site, and download all of the content. That is what the company offered. Some of that is what allow…

I don't think there's a victim here at all. not me not them.

It's just the forces that be, my need versus their need, the economy, human nature, technological abilities. Nothing more.

Let them choose their business model, I really don't care. But don't go out crying if your business model isn't sustainable, taking into account that ad blocking (which is a my prerogative as you say) is not going away.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#107

Post by Mikushi » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

yoz-y wrote: post #53

JulianMorrison wrote: post #30

I want the advertising industry to die. And I honestly don't care what it takes down with it. If it hurts, we'll find ways around it, Patreon being a good example.

In the current world of abundance, advertising is crucial to content and product producers. Let's say you make an application, how do you sell it if nobody knows about it? You make a nifty product, how do you make people know it exists? Advertising, in principle, is good, the way it is done currently on the Web is awful.

It is human and environmental suicide to keep supporting the advertisement industry which is one of the main driving force behind our society of excess, one that is simply not sustainable.

No matter how much we like to think otherwise, advertisement is barely ethical (it's nothing less than coercion and manipulation). It's time we catch up to it and shut it down, it's a failed experiment that only resulted in bad things, enabling that world of abundance that nobody needed.

I agree with the original commenter, let the advertising sector burn.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#108

Post by voidz » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

felipeerias wrote: post #72

danr4 wrote: post #2

It's rather simple in my mind. Putting your content up for free is the same as standing by my fence, waiting for me to ask you to throw your magazine over so I could read it. You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience. Don't want me to cut out the ads? tough luck, my reading experience, my choice. Want to make money? try a subscription model. Why can't you have both? Welcome to…

"Here is the deal. I will tell you a story. But not just any story: an amazing story about this one person who did something unbelievable and you can't guess what happened next and also cats. In exchange, all you have to do is let these people (whom I don't actually know) track you and run their software on your computer, which will present a garish display of images (and maybe also sound and video, did I mention tha…

Sounds like an offer I can't refuse! /i

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#109

Post by bigbugbag » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #95

JulianMorrison wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all ads get blocked, all advertisers go bust.

There will always be advertising. The point is, we shouldn't tolerate anything but honest, decent one.

why would there always be advertising? there wasn't any for about 400 000 years and we had it for a couple centuries ? a few milleniums at most.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#110

Post by austenallred » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #104

austenallred wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a false dichotomy. Certainly, there are sites that we could do without; there's clickbait-filled garbage that does nothing but pollute the Internet. But there's also a lot of really good stuff out there that is supported by ads. Stuff that people put their heart and soul and a lot of effort into, and stuff that I (and probably you) love to read, that wouldn't make it without ads. I can count the number…

There is, but I think all they'd have to do to get money is ask nicely . I have high hopes for Patreon as a platform for that. They could also ask nicely to whitelist the site in ad blocker, promising they won't abuse it. I've seen a site that does that and happily complied because hey, I get it, they need the money and I do get some value from their services. The reason people block ads is not because they don't wan…

> I think all they'd have to do to get money is ask nicely.

Having been a part of a lot of media sites in the past, I can safely say that wouldn't have been true for any of them.