Ads chew through half of mobile data • Hacker News Board

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#151

Post by lukan » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:23 PM UTC

bdangubic wrote: post #143

rlpb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The internet as you know it is the value you get out of ads. I disagree. The value I get from the Internet is almost entirely from non-ad-driven sources. The ad-driven stuff is very low value to me.

you never used google search? if not you should check it out - it is not bad - https://www.google.com

Or chrome, or gmail, or firefox, or ... sadly most of the internet is financed by ads. Only some parts remain free of them. Wikipedia for example. And even HN here ... you can argue it is payed for by the occasional ads, or rather all of it is an ad for the VC ycombinator.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#152

Post by schiffern » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:23 PM UTC

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #140

crazygringo wrote: post #101

Surprising they don't mention what I imagine has to be the obvious culprit: video ads. It's not even about advertising for me -- static ads don't bother me that much. But whenever there's autoplaying video in the corner of a page, I hate it so much. Whether it's an ad, or a news site that inexplicably thinks I want to multitask and watch their news channel at the same time I read their article. It's genuinely hard to…

Firefox has an option to turn autoplay (sound and video) off for those ads that get past ublock origin.

uBlock Origin can also block media elements larger than X MB (I use 8 MB so it still loads large images), preventing the video from loading in the first place. Disabling autoplay prevents it from playing, but the video is still downloaded.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#153

Post by RegnisGnaw » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:24 PM UTC

malfist wrote: post #14

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #6

I question the methodology of this: Enders used a browser that mimicked an iPhone 6 and accessed a total of eight "popular" news sites (though they didn't confirm what these were)." 'iPhone 6', an phone that's 10 years old. A sample size of 8 and undisclosed.

Article is 8 years old, so a 10 year old phone makes sense

Sample size, undisclosed, of 8 websites?

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#154

Post by 5evOX5hTZ9mYa9E » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:24 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #126

imoreno wrote: post #117

Maybe the ISP should start charging the ad network instead of the user for ad traffic. Then they can start blocking the ads of people who don't pay. The user, who pays for the service, is getting no value out of the ads and the advertiser is freeloading the ISP's technical infrastructure and userbase.

The internet as you know it is the value you get out of ads. You may hate ads, we all do, but at least recognize the hand that feeds you. The alternative is subscriptions for everything, and as far as I can tell that is far less popular than the ad model we have.

The internet as we know it is a dystopian hellscape. As somebody who has been around long enough to remember the internet before every interaction on it was monetised, all I want is for the ad industry to die.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#155

Post by readthenotes1 » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:24 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #51

It's immoral that you cannot turn off videos in a browser and/or that this isn't the default option on phones.

It's easy enough in some browsers

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#156

Post by agilob » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:25 PM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #139

imoreno wrote: post #117

Maybe the ISP should start charging the ad network instead of the user for ad traffic. Then they can start blocking the ads of people who don't pay. The user, who pays for the service, is getting no value out of the ads and the advertiser is freeloading the ISP's technical infrastructure and userbase.

Isn’t this against net neutrality?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/technology/net-neutrality...

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#157

Post by readthenotes1 » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:25 PM UTC

wiether wrote: post #130

isoprophlex wrote: post #2

Well, nextpit.com, you're really no better than the rest of them. This could have been a few kilobytes of static html...

Yeah I thought the same. Even though I use an adblocker, I got a huge table showing three Amazon products that took more space screen than any of the text block of the actual article. I can't even imagine how the site looks like without an adblocker...

I saw no ads with Firefox/ublock origin.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#158

Post by AlotOfReading » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #126

imoreno wrote: post #117

Maybe the ISP should start charging the ad network instead of the user for ad traffic. Then they can start blocking the ads of people who don't pay. The user, who pays for the service, is getting no value out of the ads and the advertiser is freeloading the ISP's technical infrastructure and userbase.

The internet as you know it is the value you get out of ads. You may hate ads, we all do, but at least recognize the hand that feeds you. The alternative is subscriptions for everything, and as far as I can tell that is far less popular than the ad model we have.

As far as I can tell, subscriptions aren't a reliable way to opt out of ads and ad tracking. Look at cars, cable, Uber, Spotify, Amazon prime, newspapers, telecoms, ISPs, etc. They all show sponsored content and upsell services to subscribers.

I've tried putting my money where my mouth is by switching to subscription services for everything and I still have to go out of my way to avoid advertising with adblockers.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#159

Post by grues-dinner » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

encom wrote: post #70

Bancakes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try adguard on iOS. It’s an app that you buy as an extension for safari but the block lists are very good and you can enable DoH systemwide as well.

As someone who switched from Iphone to Android, Adguard is very poor compared to uBlock, and it was in fact one major reason (of several) why I switched. But now that Google is killing adblockers, I might just stop browsing the internet entirely.

The fact that Firefox has had a near-perfect ad blocker for years and years, and the internet has only got less usable without an ad blocker and it's still struggling to break 1% on mobile is just so strange to me. It should be marketing open goal. Especially as the biggest competition has a conflict of interest that prevents them ever doing ad block well, so they can't lose out to a pivot by Chrome.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#160

Post by freehorse » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #126

imoreno wrote: post #117

Maybe the ISP should start charging the ad network instead of the user for ad traffic. Then they can start blocking the ads of people who don't pay. The user, who pays for the service, is getting no value out of the ads and the advertiser is freeloading the ISP's technical infrastructure and userbase.

The internet as you know it is the value you get out of ads. You may hate ads, we all do, but at least recognize the hand that feeds you. The alternative is subscriptions for everything, and as far as I can tell that is far less popular than the ad model we have.

I do not get this argument at all. We all eventually bear the cost of ads by them adding cost to the products being advertised that we buy. Nothing is free.