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What we break when we fix ad blocking

tonyhaile.com

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Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#161

Post by lcswi »

stevenh wrote: post #138
jordigh wrote: post #4

I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…

ISPs should be legally required to pay a fixed percentage of their profits per subscriber to the owners of the sites that those subscribers visited. No one seems to have a problem with 70/30 these days, so how about that? The 70% of former ISP profits could instead be distributed in a fair way to site owners based on total time the user spent interacting with their site in the frontmost tab, as calculated in an agree…

God no! That would throw altruistic websites into the same bucket as clickbait.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#162

Post by 6d0debc071 »

rm999 wrote: post #17
jordigh wrote: post #4

I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…

>everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms ... when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need ... I flat out refuse consumerist society whenever possible. I don't think this is a great way to frame the debate - we've been a consumerist society full of billboards and sales people for 100s of years before the internet was even invented. There has bee…

> I don't think this is a great way to frame the debate - we've been a consumerist society full of billboards and sales people for 100s of years before the internet was even invented. There has been relatively little pushback (perhaps mild annoyance) outside advertising on websites.

There's been plenty of push-back against sales people: Do not call lists, blacklists on phones of late, swearing at the people down the telephone, 'no callers' signs and rather unpleasant greetings, 'No thank you' yelled at the people trying to accost you in the streets, the inability to get to a decision maker without an inside line in b2b sales.

And billboards? Well, they're more an American thing than something I see much of, there are three I can think of in a few miles of where I live, all fairly well hidden and definitely not things that you'd spend time looking at unless you were trying to.

Adverts on TV? Let's not pretend they weren't annoying, or that we didn't skip over them in recordings whenever we could. They were just an unfortunate cost of doing business that there wasn't a way around bar sighing and leaving the room to do something else for a few minutes. At least for myself, they were one of the big things that finally decreased the quality of programming to a point where it wasn't worth the bother of owning a TV. 15-20 minutes between 5 minute adverts? I think I'll just buy the DVD....

Web advertising is more like the salesmen than the other things, mind. Things that attempt to force your attention to them and try to interact with your computer in various undesirable ways.... If it was just a .JPEG at the top of every page I doubt anyone would give them five minutes thought one way or the other.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#163

Post by mocookie »

lazyjones wrote: post #53
jordigh wrote: post #4

I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…

> It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. That's probably the most common reason. I doubt people actually click on annoying ads in significant numbers these days. Perhaps publishers could settle for tracking only, preferably server-side without 3rd parties involved, thereby removing the most common motivation for ad blocking? Tracking dat…

Server-side tracking would be even harder to opt out of than the current setup.. the server could choose to not send you the article if you don't send it what it wants (ie proof of your identity, your age/address/name, etc)

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#164

Post by jacques_chester »

ISL wrote: post #3

I've been trying out Google Contributor of late. It's not perfect, but it's the first practical micropayment service I've been able to use. If we want good content, we have to be willing to pay for it.

Contributor is almost the correct model, but the wrong company. It directly cannibalises the revenue stream that Google totally relies on: advertising.

That's why they made it a sliding scale, instead of a fixed no-ads-ever package.

And I expect that the more "successful" it is, the more watered down it will become. Like cable TV: the promise was "no ads". Then there were ads.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#165

Post by bambax »

This article, like all the ones before it complaining about AdBlock, seem to conflate all kinds of contents like they're all the same.

Yet, they aren't. People gladly pay for content: books, mp3 (streamed or downloaded), going to the theater, subscribing to Netflix and/or cable, etc. etc.

The article argues that with the advent of adblocking all content will hide behind a paywall; but that will not happen... or not for long.

Paywalls work for high quality content (eg, The Economist); but not for low quality content.

Low quality content cannot survive behind a paywall, because nobody will pay for it; what will happen is that low quality content made for profit will die/disappear, and we'll all be better for it.

What will survive is high quality content made for profit or for free, and low quality content made for free (which we can ignore).

This whole debate exists only because current producers of low quality content have somehow convinced everyone that their content is in fact worthwhile, and that it's an accident and a crime that they'd be robbed of revenue, and that users are fools not wanting to pay for it.

This is rubbish. Users are not fools, and they are always right. What they will not pay for is worthless, literally.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#166

Post by bambax »

stock_toaster wrote: post #65
grey-area wrote: post #9

This flood of articles about blocking ads are all predicated on the assumption that making money with ads supports quality content, and that the internet as we know it would not exist without ads. Both of these assumptions are false - the internet didn't begin by being driven by ads, and it won't end that way, and ad-driven content is degraded by the ads when it starts to exist because of them. The intrusive ads whic…

Wholeheartedly agree.

Me too! Just said much of the same thing in another comment.

All content is not created equal; content supported by ads is the worst kind, and there's a good chance it'll simply be killed by adblocking.

This is all very good news.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#167

Post by eli »

nl wrote: post #152
eli wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the way the web works fundamentally changes, it will always be easier to block ads than to detect and block adblockers.

Yes, but arguably there is more financial motivation for the publishers. You end up in an arms race.

More like cat and mouse. The publishers are at an extreme technical disadvantage.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#168

Post by briHass »

bambax wrote: post #165

This article, like all the ones before it complaining about AdBlock, seem to conflate all kinds of contents like they're all the same. Yet, they aren't. People gladly pay for content: books, mp3 (streamed or downloaded), going to the theater, subscribing to Netflix and/or cable, etc. etc. The article argues that with the advent of adblocking all content will hide behind a paywall; but that will not happen... or not f…

Well said.

Maybe some of these individuals forget that many of us were on the Internet well before it became as "commercial" as it is now. The bulk of the content came from users that didn't expect or receive any payment for their writing...much like many of the biggest sites today: Reddit, etc. What wasn't around was shitty, click-bait junk written for no reason other than to drive ad impressions.

If 70% of what's on the web died due to lack of ad revenue, I don't think society would suffer some huge loss. Stating that ads are required to support content is begging the question; if people don't want to pay for it, the content isn't worth anything to begin with.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#170

Post by JoeAltmaier »

look_lookatme wrote: post #169

If you use an ad blocker and consume content supported by ads, you are a thief. It may be the best case scenario for your security, time, etc and there are cases where thievery is justified, but you are a thief nonetheless.

That's foolishness. There's nothing in the world that compels me to use your content the way you intended. I can read it or not, store it on my backup drive, print it out and use it for the bottom of my birdcage.

I understand that content providers are frustrated. But lashing out and calling names is pointless and silly.

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