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What the ad blocker debate reveals

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Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#141

Post by javery »

mirimir wrote: post #112
austenallred wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> So, you go to a site, and download all of the content. > You elect to not display that part using your client. That's not how ad-blockers work. They prevent ads from downloading. And so sites load faster, and mobile users pay less for throughput.

This is not completely accurate - most ad blockers include both request blocking as well as content blocking. For instance it might not be able to block a sponsored tweet since it is returned with all of the other tweets, but it can hide that div on the page.

Check any block list and you will see both rules.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#142

Post by javery »

gabriel34 wrote: post #123
jerf wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, the memories. I haven't seen this metaphor fight in like 8 years now, since web annotation basically died. And here we finally are with a version of this debate that people actually care about, because there's actual money at stake. Finally my years of prep are ready to pay off! First, I suggest everyone resist metaphors. Physical metaphors don't work here at all . For one thing, the "free content" may in the fut…

You are assuming the adblockers will enter said arms race, which they don't really have to. What is the provider to do when I refuse to render his add? Block me from content? My guess is, given the necessity of disabling the ad blocking to view content, many users will simply bounce from that content. Content is cheap compared to the scarce attention we pay to each subject when we have so much information so easily a…

If it's something you are really looking for I am not sure you would bounce so quickly. What if it's the answer to a bug you are trying to solve? Or a video on how to fix a problem with your car? Plenty of content is valuable and rare enough that people would disable their ad blocker for it - the frivolous stuff not so much though.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#143

Post by moron4hire »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #140
moron4hire wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that these are good things to do, and I actually do most of them already. But how can you consider these things "not advertising", such that you find them acceptable? These are forms of advertising. These tasks aren't managing the project, they are certainly not building the project. That pretty much just leaves marketing the project.

They're certainly a form of advertising or marketing, but the result isn't "an ad", which is what this discussion was originally talking about. You're not paying to get something in front of unwilling eyes and ears, distracting them from what they actually wanted. Every one of the approaches I mentioned will only work if you've built something people want to use and talk about. Also, out of curiosity, which of the it…

I haven't talked to any of the YouTube vloggers about my stuff. YouTube is mostly a black box to me right now. I've been doing some live-broadcasting of my coding sessions, saving copies, then some basic editing-for-time-and-focus before posting to YouTube, so I've been getting some exposure on YouTube that way, but I don't follow any gaming channels so I don't know much about it yet.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#144

Post by mirimir »

javery wrote: post #141
mirimir wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, you go to a site, and download all of the content. > You elect to not display that part using your client. That's not how ad-blockers work. They prevent ads from downloading. And so sites load faster, and mobile users pay less for throughput.

This is not completely accurate - most ad blockers include both request blocking as well as content blocking. For instance it might not be able to block a sponsored tweet since it is returned with all of the other tweets, but it can hide that div on the page. Check any block list and you will see both rules.

OK, thanks for the clarification.

Nonetheless, many sites do load dramatically faster with ad blocking. That's especially so with high-latency connections. I often use Tor through nested VPN chains, and total latency can be 1-2 seconds. Some sites are unusable without AdBlock and NoScript.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#145

Post by jusben1369 »

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…

To keep with the neighborly analogy what's happening is your neighbor is opening up his garage and lining it with magazines and comfortable seating for you to sit for free and read. However he's also lining his driveway with folks pitching you on goods and services on your way there. You're saying to heck with that and jumping over the fence right near the garage entrance and popping straight in. Your neighbor knows that type of abuse can occur and it's really up to them to decide how they want to handle it. But to pretend that you and he and the advertisers don't understand the implied relationship is disingenuous.

For all those saying "get a subscription model!" remember this. A subscription model, by its very definition, implies that both of us expect a repeat, longer term relationship. Understand if that's the only way to monetize content on the internet it'll change the type and way content is created.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#146

Post by JoshTriplett »

moron4hire wrote: post #143
JoshTriplett wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're certainly a form of advertising or marketing, but the result isn't "an ad", which is what this discussion was originally talking about. You're not paying to get something in front of unwilling eyes and ears, distracting them from what they actually wanted. Every one of the approaches I mentioned will only work if you've built something people want to use and talk about. Also, out of curiosity, which of the it…

I haven't talked to any of the YouTube vloggers about my stuff. YouTube is mostly a black box to me right now. I've been doing some live-broadcasting of my coding sessions, saving copies, then some basic editing-for-time-and-focus before posting to YouTube, so I've been getting some exposure on YouTube that way, but I don't follow any gaming channels so I don't know much about it yet.

Yeah, coding videos are going to hit an entirely different audience than gaming videos. Assuming you have something in a playable state, you're looking for some of the more respected LPers and game reviewers on both YouTube and Twitch. Normally, "please try my game" is something they get a lot of and tend to ignore unless they hear it from someone they already trust, but VR is sufficiently awesome that you could likely get through that filter, especially if you're offering to send them everything needed to play. (Though I do wonder, how easily could what you're doing be recorded in a sensible way for an audience other than the person experiencing it?)

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#147

Post by joshstrange »

onion2k wrote: post #119
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…

Let me start off by saying I have clicked (on purpose) on less than 10 ads in my whole life. I've clicked on hundreds. Thousands probably. For me clicking an ad is a win-win - the site I want to support gets a little money, and the advertiser gets to find out that online ads don't convert to sales so eventually they'll stop buying them. You can support the things you love and drive the ad model off the internet at th…

It isn't me being spiteful on purpose or anything like that I've just honestly never seen anything interests me.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#148

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

moron4hire wrote: post #44
FroshKiller wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally never bothered with ad blocking until every other site hit me with stupid landing pages (like on Forbes), exhortations to try their mobile app instead of their site (every Tapatalk-enabled forum ever), pleas to take a feedback survey before I've even seen anything that warrants feedback (MSDN), and modal ads that don't load until I try to scroll down to continue reading the content (soooooooooooo many bl…

It has really gotten bad. It's all a desperate grasp for ever shrinking ad dollars. Users get wise to the tactics and develop coping behaviors. You can track our eye movements and see we don't ever once even look at the common areas where ads lie. Popup boxes get closed in less than a second, with many people not even registering that it ever opened [0]. I've personally taken to sliding my cursor past the top edge of…

You seem to easily shrug off your conclusion. But it makes me shiver to think about that future. If advertising is dead, what else is Google going to do with all that data it has on us? Sell to the highest bidder?

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#149

Post by moron4hire »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #148
moron4hire wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has really gotten bad. It's all a desperate grasp for ever shrinking ad dollars. Users get wise to the tactics and develop coping behaviors. You can track our eye movements and see we don't ever once even look at the common areas where ads lie. Popup boxes get closed in less than a second, with many people not even registering that it ever opened [0]. I've personally taken to sliding my cursor past the top edge of…

You seem to easily shrug off your conclusion. But it makes me shiver to think about that future. If advertising is dead, what else is Google going to do with all that data it has on us? Sell to the highest bidder?

They have already. That cat is long, long out of the bag. [0]

I'm starting to think it makes more sense to make sure everyone has my data to make sore no one has a competitive advantage because of it. No, seriously though, I don't literally want to do that, but I'm starting to think in terms of that and what can we do about it. I don't think it's avoidable. I don't know how you would manage such a thing. But I think the only thing keeping us anywhere near safe is the basics of competition between these various companies. If one of them can succeed at creating their dream of a walled garden social network from which user activity never escapes, I think we will be far worse off.

Most people don't care about privacy, they only care about getting free stuff. As long as there are almost no consequences to the lack of privacy--or consequences that our culture can easily turn around and use to shame the victim [1]--then nothing is going to change.

The FOSS community isn't helping any. They turn their noses up at such prosaic projects as social media. How difficult would it be to make a decentralized twitter clone? It's apparently impossible, since it has been discussed numerous times and still hasn't happened yet. And how would it be different from RSS? Look where that went.

I think the only hope we have is the complete implosion of advertising income as a business model on the internet. It is heading there, but the response has been to pour fuel on the fire. I think we're going to have to see some companies going bankrupt before we'll see major change. Otherwise, they'll just click-fraud leech money out of the system in a state of equilibrium.

[0] Also, between my prior work in the defense industry and my wife's current work, the OPM hack has destroyed any semblance of privacy for my data.

[1] RE: people losing jobs over things they've posted on Facebook. Millenials didn't invent being a jackass. They're just the first generation to have it broadcast live for their teachers, parents, and bosses to see.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#150

Post by jerf »

userbinator wrote: post #89
jerf wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, the memories. I haven't seen this metaphor fight in like 8 years now, since web annotation basically died. And here we finally are with a version of this debate that people actually care about, because there's actual money at stake. Finally my years of prep are ready to pay off! First, I suggest everyone resist metaphors. Physical metaphors don't work here at all . For one thing, the "free content" may in the fut…

Where that becomes particularly relevant though is that the clients at this point are becoming increasingly outright deceptive and duplicitious. Instead of passively failing to render ads, actively deceiving the remote systems opens a new door both legally and ethically. At some point after this the publishers have both a legal and ethical case that you are not merely "experiencing the content as you wish", but activ…

No.

If you really want to know what I think, I basically linked a book that describes it. The writing may not be my best ever but the ideas have as far as I'm concerned stood the test of 15 years of tech development, which is, if I dare say so myself, not bad. No need to make up strawmen; you've got plenty of content to criticize.

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