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The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

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Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#121

Post by drivers99 »

andygates wrote: post #83
aylons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your example, there are two possibilities: either you did want and need to buy the product before the advertisement or you didn't. In the first case, the advertisement was wasteful: the company that sold you the product has unnecessarily spent money, which goes to the product price. And this is not a small amount: big consumer companies spend billions on advertisement space/time alone, an amount comparable to thei…

There's an amusing and relatively new third case where you already have bought the product, but ad servers are dumb and will spam you with ads for that product for months, because your trackers said you searched for that product once. It's wasteful, but in an almost ironic novel way.

Actually some advertising is intended to reach people who already bought the product, to reassure them they made the right decision, and to keep buying their brand in the future (brand loyalty).

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#122

Post by paulmd »

RodericDay wrote: post #76
chatmasta wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If these costs are being borne evenly, then it's complete societal waste. That doesn't make sense. You are saying because User reads Content, Advertiser pays Content, and User pays Advertiser, that the middle step of Advertiser paying Content is unnecessary, because User could pay Content. Simple counterexample: I like reading techcrunch, but would never pay for it. But I might see an ad for a new device that I lik…

See, I really like markets, and I have a problem with phrases like: > I like reading techcrunch, but would never pay for it. Sounds to me a lot like Mitt Romney talking about how his wife has the most important job in the world, but she's essentially his unpaid housewife. Sounds hollow. You are paying for techcrunch, by buying products advertised on it. It would be good for the finances of everyone in society to know…

Costs don't drive prices though. Products are priced at whatever the consumer will pay, and if they won't pay enough then the product doesn't get made.

Price competition is an idea that exists but it's plan Z for any business. It's the last resort when you can't produce a superior product or find another niche that justifies higher margins. Think AMD vs Intel here.

No sane businessman has ever woken up and decided to slash his profit margin just for the hell of it. You can tell by the fact that businesses make profits - that wouldn't happen with perfect competition.

Nobody wants to be the low-margin high-volume product, because you're only a bad quarter away from low-margin low-volume. And once you're in it, it's a really hard pit to climb out of.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#123

Post by fwn »

SilasX wrote: post #96
codezero wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most ads are served by an ad network which requires third party involvement. Adblockers block those. It's not manageable to post individual ads.

But why can't they arrange some alternate setup where the main site serves the ads (relaying the ads from another server) rather than the ad network? It would be roughly the same effort from the site owner.

I think it's because the ad-networks don't want to trust the site owners. Which is understandable since there are colliding interests between advertisers, site owners, users and ad-networks.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#124

Post by harryc2011 »

andygates wrote: post #83
aylons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your example, there are two possibilities: either you did want and need to buy the product before the advertisement or you didn't. In the first case, the advertisement was wasteful: the company that sold you the product has unnecessarily spent money, which goes to the product price. And this is not a small amount: big consumer companies spend billions on advertisement space/time alone, an amount comparable to thei…

There's an amusing and relatively new third case where you already have bought the product, but ad servers are dumb and will spam you with ads for that product for months, because your trackers said you searched for that product once. It's wasteful, but in an almost ironic novel way.

I wanted to mention this exact thing on one of the threads earlier today but couldn't articulate it properly.

In the UK the department stores John Lewis and House of Fraser are both guilty of this - if I browse something on either of their sites an ad for it follows me around the web for ~4 months.

E.g. I was buying Birthday gifts for my girlfriend at the beginning of July and looked on both of these sites and they are both displaying the same ads to me (i.e. at this point both are spending their advertising budget to annoy me)

What I want is this - a space where I can say "I'm looking for a picnic hamper for a gift & I want to spend between £25 & £50. I need it by date X" This can then be given to the advertisers (auctioned?) and they can display some ads to me which are relevant. When date X is reached (or I indicate that I've bought said item and am therefore out of the market) these ads stop. For added info I can even say what I bought and why - e.g. "I bought X in your store as a picnic hamper won't fit through my mailbox"

Surely this is more useful for everyone involved? I get ads which are actually being targeted based on something I control (vs. being inferred via which sites I happen to click on or what cookies are set) and the advertisers get more detailed info as well.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#125

Post by eevilspock »

RodericDay wrote: post #7

What I really can't understand, that permeates this whole discussion, is plenty of people that try to sell the idea that ads let us have content "for free", and that all we have to tolerate is "a little annoyance". It's insane. If companies are buying ad-space, it's because they expect to get more business in return. This means that someone out there is being influenced by said ads, so that if the content cost X to p…

Dude, I've been trying to spread this exact understanding on HN for years[1]. You would think that this crowd would get that there is no free lunch. But cognitive dissonance is powerful:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

I've been tracking this debate (or, until recently, lack thereof) for years and no one is articulating this well, myself included. Specifically, no one is articulating how this doesn't even make sense from an economics perspective.

I'm glad Marco Arment is supporting ad blocking, but he fails to see the how bad the ad-supported business model is for the web and how much it costs society. He's an intelligent guy, so I suspect it's for the reason Upton Sinclair put so well. "I make most of my living from ads," Arment writes.

Let's work on articulating this better together? Email me! Anyone else interested is welcome too.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245427, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9961761

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#126

Post by vetinari »

insertnickname wrote: post #75
vetinari wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because actually stopping tracking requires premium (paid) version? Or because mobile version is not a browser plugin, but virtual vpn, so it doesn't work with your real vpn?

The Disconnect website says that the free version "[blocks] malware & tracking (Desktop only)".

Yes, and also says: Upgrade to premium protection - Block malware & tracking (Desktop and mobile).

Ghostery works fine on both, desktop and mobile. It even syncs as an addon across both instances.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#127

Post by lotu »

SilasX wrote: post #96
codezero wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most ads are served by an ad network which requires third party involvement. Adblockers block those. It's not manageable to post individual ads.

But why can't they arrange some alternate setup where the main site serves the ads (relaying the ads from another server) rather than the ad network? It would be roughly the same effort from the site owner.

Because the main site owner then has to spend time coordinating with literally thousands of advertisers to get their ads for their champagnes. They then have a build an maintain an adverser that is hosted in their domain, right now ad servers you buy are hosted in a separate domain.

This also eliminates the possibility of do programatic buying of ads, think Ad Words. Large companies have the money to spend on this, they don't because they don't have to. What you are suggesting would cut every small company out of the advertising space.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#128

Post by Joeboy »

adrusi wrote: post #95
Joeboy wrote: post #61

Aren't we just going to start making websites that don't serve the content until they've served the ads?

Well no, because then the page would load way too slowly and users would click away and avoid the site in the future. But suppose publishers did go this route. Adblocking software would just evolve to match it. They would fetch the ads from the server, possibly via a proxy, run their scripts, feeding bogus statistics to the trackers, and then not display the ads. Users have the right to control their computers howeve…

> Well no, because then the page would load way too slowly and users would click away and avoid the site in the future.

People (fairly) happily sit through 15 minutes of advertising an hour, if that's the only way to get the content they want.

Maybe adblocking software will keep up. It lags behind at the moment, so I'm a bit doubtful it will keep up in a future of increasingly sneaky ad delivery.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#129

Post by commentzorro »

imgabe wrote: post #107
aylons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your example, there are two possibilities: either you did want and need to buy the product before the advertisement or you didn't. In the first case, the advertisement was wasteful: the company that sold you the product has unnecessarily spent money, which goes to the product price. And this is not a small amount: big consumer companies spend billions on advertisement space/time alone, an amount comparable to thei…

In the first case, you know you need some product, but not necessarily which one. You need a pair of shoes, but are you going to get Reeboks, Nike, Asics, or what? They all serve the need you originally had, advertising is just directing you towards one or the other.

I hate it when style items like shoes are used as an example. Once you're out of your teens shopping for shoes just isn't much of an issue in real life. Real life is more like, "I need a vacuum. It needs these properties: canister, quiet, light, and a beater brush." No ad is really going to give you this information. Any ad showing a vacuum is just wasting your time. You're going to go to an objective site to compare products, not click through to some random site and purchase.

And advertisers know this so we get a host a stupid ads trying to convince you that one flavor of sugar water is better than another. Or that this poop inducing yogurt is better than that. In other words, effective ads rely on trickery to get you to think style is more important than substance.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#130

Post by jpmattia »

zokier wrote: post #105
jpmattia wrote: post #12

I'm beginning to find the various articles about ad-blocking fatuous, and I doubt I'm the only one. Ads served via a centralized vendor can be blocked trivially, and people are choosing to block them. You can make a whole lot of arguments about ethics, or you can just admit that it's a broken business model. Worse, it is becoming apparent that ads increase the attack surface. Failing to clean that up will cause armie…

Do you also think that selling movies is broken business model because movies can pirated trivially? Or that free software is broken model because GPL can be violated trivially?

In principle: If you pirate movies or the GPL, the legal system comes after you. So no, not completely broken.

But that's my point: Those industries have taken the path of serving the subsegment of the market that won't break the law/contract. And maybe that's the answer for website advertising, but adblockers are a one-time install and look like less effort than pirating (for movies) or obfuscating (for GPL). So good luck if that's your business model.

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