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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

#191

Post by dynomight »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #27
dynomight wrote: post #16

Maybe scaling native advertising might hire more people than robotizing the whole affair the way it is now.

Are you implying that native advertisements aren't ads, or are more acceptable kind of ad, or are impossible to block? Because none of those things are true. Native advertising is probably the worst kind of advertising. If I see a website or magazine publish an "advertorial", I'm never going to trust anything they publish from then on. It completely undermines credibility and only makes sense as a last-ditch moneygra…

Oh my goodness you are so correct.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#192

Post by copsarebastards »

sambrand wrote: post #71

Advertising is paying for goods with attention. It's a novel type of currency. It's a wealth generator. And it's contributed to a more diverse Internet. If you don't want to pay with attention that's fine. If you believe the Internet should be an ad-free Utopia, that's fine too. But rather than take content without paying attention, practice some civil disobedience: embargo publishers who piss you off.

> But rather than take content without paying attention, practice some civil disobedience: embargo publishers who piss you off.

Economically, how does this differ from using an ad blocker? Do you think content publishers care whether they don't get paid because I didn't visit their site or because I used an ad-blocker?

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#193

Post by ifdefdebug »

kuschku wrote: post #181
frik wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need better ads, e.g. a comeback of the traditional banner ads where ads where just a single picture with a link. If you really need a video ad, create a small size mp4 movie and add a link, e.g. 70KB for 30s video. But nowadays ads are too overblown with huge JS code, invasive behaviors, and still a lot of flash animations and videos. Basically the current situation is the fault of many advertisement networks tha…

And we need relevant ads. If I’m watching a let's play on YouTube, I don't care about buying crayola crayons. If you’d present me an ad for the game the player plays, on the other hand, I’d probably buy it. Maybe even give the youtuber like a 2% cut of the sales.

Allow your browser to store cookies between sessions and keep it signed in at G, T and F and you'll get relevant ads. I personally prefer ad blockers.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#194

Post by Mz »

copsarebastards wrote: post #190
Mz wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put that another way: People currently try to monetize by putting ads on their sites. Other people use adblockers, denying them payment but benefitting from their labor. If you want the ads to stop but the labor to continue, you basically desire slave labor from people. I posit that if you are using ad blockers and not also promoting another form of valid monetization, you are, in fact, taking advantage of peo…

> If you want the ads to stop but the labor to continue, you basically desire slave labor from people. No, I desire the business model to change. > I posit that if you are using ad blockers and not also promoting another form of valid monetization, you are, in fact, taking advantage of people in a manner that is essentially slave labor. My ancestors were literally kidnapped out of their homes and forced to do backbre…

There is current!y a running battle between people using ads to try to monetize their work and people using ad blockers. Lots of formerly well monetized businesses are being hit hard by this. This is not one individual's personal incompetence. It is a widespread trend that is de facto denying people a "living wage" who previously had a very successful business model.

I am sorry you are offended. But, slavery is defined by ownership, not abuse. Not all slaves were also actively abused. But all did labor for the benefit of another without recompense, which is heinous enough without added abuse on top of it.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#195

Post by summerdown2 »

My understanding is that adblockers work by removing known third party app sites from loading items on a page.

If that's true, what would stop a website from proxying ads, so they appear to come from the website rather than the third party?

I guess that would involve more bandwidth and so less money for the site, but high-bandwidth items are the ones people complain about anyway. I don't see why text based ads would be impossible under that scheme, for example.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#196

Post by ifdefdebug »

Mz wrote: post #87
itsybitsycoder wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But websites don't ask for my consent before they show me ads, and I have no idea what they expect the "price" of an article to be before I click on it, nor what I'll be getting in return. Why does the author of an article have a unilateral right to decide the terms of exchange? Websites are able to detect most ad-blockers these days. If they like, they're welcome to deny me access to their content if they see I've b…

I am not suggesting they should have a unilateral right. I am asking for suggestions on how to solve this so that content producers can get paid without posting ads, something no one has yet to really respond to. The Internet has created a situation that did not previously exist. It is natural that we don't automatically know what the solution is.

The internet has created a situation of millions of people writing text that nobody wants to read, yet you frequently stumble upon it when searching for real content.

In my experience, the contents that really matter are written either by people who are NOT trying to make money from their writing because they wish to share experiences from their day jobs or free time, or by people who are payed for writing by someone but not by their readers.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#197

Post by copsarebastards »

Mz wrote: post #194
copsarebastards wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want the ads to stop but the labor to continue, you basically desire slave labor from people. No, I desire the business model to change. > I posit that if you are using ad blockers and not also promoting another form of valid monetization, you are, in fact, taking advantage of people in a manner that is essentially slave labor. My ancestors were literally kidnapped out of their homes and forced to do backbre…

There is current!y a running battle between people using ads to try to monetize their work and people using ad blockers. Lots of formerly well monetized businesses are being hit hard by this. This is not one individual's personal incompetence. It is a widespread trend that is de facto denying people a "living wage" who previously had a very successful business model. I am sorry you are offended. But, slavery is defin…

> But, slavery is defined by ownership, not abuse.

I disagree, slavery is about force against consent. I agree that abuse isn't necessary for slavery to be bad, but force is. Nobody is forcing content creators to create content without their consent.

> But all did labor for the benefit of another without recompense, which is heinous enough without added abuse on top of it.

I do plenty of labor for the benefit of others without recompense: I volunteer. Again, it's not about labor without recompense, it's about force. Slave labor and volunteerism are both labor without recompense: the difference is that slave labor is forced against the laborer's consent.

But let's go back to the ownership thing for a second: are you really claiming that people who use ad blockers are trying to take ownership of content creators and/or their content? Really? Even if I did agree with you that slavery is about ownership, your argument doesn't make sense.

EDIT: At a more fundamental level, it's completely arrogant and entitled to assume that just because you performed labor someone should pay for it. I've put a lot of labor into learning how to play guitar. I could probably post a bunch of recording of my guitar playing and get a bunch of people to listen to them and view ads. But I couldn't get anyone to pay for my recordings, because I still suck at guitar. Am I entitled to recompense for the many hours I've spent practicing?

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#198

Post by JupiterMoon »

gress wrote: post #174
JupiterMoon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Websites are able to detect most ad-blockers these days. If they like, they're welcome to deny me access to their content if they see I've blocked the ads. The better option is to ask the user to turn off their adblocker and explain why (and say that the adverts are vetted for malware properly).

What has malware got to do with anything?

Adverts have been know to have malware payloads for drive bys embedded in them...

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#199

Post by Mz »

copsarebastards wrote: post #197
Mz wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is current!y a running battle between people using ads to try to monetize their work and people using ad blockers. Lots of formerly well monetized businesses are being hit hard by this. This is not one individual's personal incompetence. It is a widespread trend that is de facto denying people a "living wage" who previously had a very successful business model. I am sorry you are offended. But, slavery is defin…

> But, slavery is defined by ownership, not abuse. I disagree, slavery is about force against consent. I agree that abuse isn't necessary for slavery to be bad, but force is. Nobody is forcing content creators to create content without their consent. > But all did labor for the benefit of another without recompense, which is heinous enough without added abuse on top of it. I do plenty of labor for the benefit of othe…

This has nothing to do with assuming that anyone is automatically owed compensation, regardless of the value of what is produced.

As I said before: Lots of previously successful, legitimate businesses are finding their income slashed. People doing things that are actually valued by others, where the site gets substantial traffic and ads previously paid for staff. This is not an argument that anyone who slaps something on the web deserves compensation. It is an argument that THIS model is failing when it once worked, so we need a new model to pay for the things we do value online. The expectation that all web content be provided for free is not a healthy or realistic expectation. And if this model fails and no other emerges, then either people work for free, whatever terminology you want to use for that, or things we value simply disappear, something I have already seen more than enough of over the years -- and compared to many here, I got online relatively recently.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#200

Post by gpsx »

Just to throw an idea out, surely not original...Http has a payment/advertising system added to the headers. Users decide if they will make a micropayment, view advertising or do a subscription to view a page/site if the site requests payment. The user can have a default setting and also settings for specific sites. Along with this there is some management that limits information the site can get about the user.
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