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Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

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Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#191

Post by rincebrain »

ufmace wrote: post #182
vijayr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with greed is that it only takes a handful of players to ruin it for everyone. There are still good sites providing quality content and monetizing it responsibly and decently with ads - they will also get hit by ad blockers, as most users would likely block all ads (and we can't blame them for it)

I've been sticking to blocking all ads everywhere for a long time. It feels like every time I start thinking I ought to whitelist a few of the sites with better content, a story comes out about a fresh set of malware via ads attacks on very respectable sites. Another example of advertiser's greed and sloppiness spoiling the pot.

There's an interesting short story I am unable to find online at the moment, which describes a near-future in which people have figured out how to have similarly invasive effects on the viewers with print ads - leading to infectious graffiti, for example.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#192

Post by rincebrain »

bluejekyll wrote: post #79
inanutshellus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually like seeing ads (though I wish they weren't coming from omniscient ad networks and were instead coming from the sites I was visiting). Content providers get money, I get free content. Nice. HTML5 Video Ads are what finally switched me to ad blockers. When people served static images and Adobe Flash videos, I could just disable auto-play of Flash, and voila, I see ads, but don't get obnoxious videos on rand…

Safari at least added a disable all sound on a tab button. They should probably add or include video as an option too.

Chrome also has this button, though I don't know when they added it (right-click the tab, "Mute Tab").

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#193

Post by ghrifter »

nulbyte wrote: post #55
karterk wrote: post #5

For a very long time, I did not want to use ad blockers. I have used ads in the past to monetize some of my own projects, and I really did not want to stab the creators of quality content. However, last week I finally reversed my decision and started using ad blockers. Why? Frankly, many sites are just greedy. Banners were ugly enough (and I tolerated them) but many sites these days show ads that cover the content, a…

I believe you hit the nail on the head: greed. This was my tipping point. When sites got so greedy that they stopped caring if anyone read their content, I stopped caring if they got paid for obtrusive ads. Even Google has designed some horrendous ads, especially the Nexus ad that grabs swipes on mobile, keeping you from scrolling past it. If the ads stuck to the meatverse-equivalent style of static but attractive, I…

Next up will be getting rid of "sponsored content". At least they dont eat bandwidth or server you malware. I mean they should just be images wrapped in a href to link to a "sponsored" article, instead of some javascript ad network that can serve malware

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#194

Post by zodPod »

While the discussion here on HN is good about this topic, I think the actual article missed the point completely.

Sure, tracking is an important issue with ads but I really don't think Do Not Track made any sense nor would have made any difference. It's the continued, forceful intrusion into our minds that these ads make.

Without ad blockers: I go to a page and, the first thing I see, is an overlay with a Ford Truck on it. Then I click the x that appeared after 25 seconds on that and I continue down the page. I manage to read half of the article in spite of the "Social Bar" that is blocking some of the text and then I see a "article continued after the jump" and an ad served right below it. I scroll past that to the rest of the content. I continue to lose track of the article that I'm reading because there's a giant flashy banner to the right side of my screen replaying some video with crazy motion and is following me as I scroll. THEN, I finally get to the bottom and I'm like "I liked that article. I should read more by these people!" and, instead of their content, there's a bunch of click bait bullcrap that leads to poorly written articles about topics that I don't care about at the bottom. I then proceed to leave the page in anger.

With ad blockers: I go to a page and read an article. I get it done quickly and efficiently and am able to concentrate and take in all of the information. I get to the bottom and want to read more but I don't see any more from that site because it's all served through some scammy ad network and is blocked. I leave the site but I will return when I see another link from said site, for sure!

None of that would have been changed by Do Not Track and THAT is the problem with ads today. (IMO at least..)

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#195

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

ihsw wrote: post #107
imgabe wrote: post #19

It would be interesting to see if someone could endow an independent publication with enough money to keep it going, then put quality ad-free journalism behind a paywall. I'm thinking it would be something like "B Corporation". Not exactly a charity, but not necessarily trying to maximize profit either. Charge a high monthly price, maybe $50/month for immediate access to new articles, but after 1 month everything bec…

The Intercept, edited by Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald of the Snowden Disclosure group, is exactly that. https://theintercept.com/ Their website is clean and I have yet to see intrusive ads anywhere.

While I love The Intercept, and First Look Media, its parent company, it is important to understand that this is not a typical scenario. The Intercept runs at a loss, which it is allowed to do because First Look Media's founder and president is Pierre Omidyar (eBay). He cuts checks for The Intercept when they need funding. They don't have an economically-sustainable journalism operation, which is why they are currently working on new for-profit initiatives.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#196

Post by pdkl95 »

tanker wrote: post #190
tn13 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the "greed" part. I worked for a publisher which eventually had to put 8 ad units per page and still could not break even and went out of business soon. I don't think trying to pay salaries of employees is greed and if it is then all of us are greedy. But your solution is right and that is why native ads like Taboola, Outbrain and Revcontent are winning. As times goes by having ads that are not dis…

The idea of ads indistinguishable from content is troubling. I agree this is a probable outcome. It sounds like food for conspiracy theories. I see two paths. First, ads so good you seek them out knowing they are advertising. This would be similar to a good catalog. Second, you are looking for content and find something produced by a company without your knowledge. It would be easy to produce "Top 10" lists or other…

Ads as content isn't that bad of a problem. Consider a review or a show that uses a product for legitimate reasons.

The (far) bigger problem will be using your friends against you[1]. Advertising by making various "credit scores" dependent on your friends using the "right" products will be very hard to counter. I suggest fighting it now.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#197

Post by recursive »

tomp wrote: post #49
Spooky23 wrote: post #11

Online ads are pure garbage. It's amazing to me that I still actively seek out some legacy ads (flyers in the Sunday paper, Thursday car ads, Wednesday butcher ads) in the local paper. But except for the occasional Google organic result, I never, ever get any utility from online advertising. The closest thing is the ads in podcasts, which tend to be built around a story and are more compelling. I've looked at several…

> It's amazing to me that I still actively seek out some legacy ads (flyers in the Sunday paper, Thursday car ads, Wednesday butcher ads) in the local paper Those are not ads. It's legitimate information that helps you, so you seek it out. The vast majority of ads are not informative, but rather use emotional manipulation to get you to buy stuff you don't need, or that you wouldn't buy otherwise.

Why do you think those aren't ads?

> Advertising (or advertizing) is a form of marketing communication used to promote or sell something, usually a business's product or service.

It sounds like it fits the bill to me.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#198

Post by JeremyNT »

zzleeper wrote: post #155

What do you guys use as ad blockers on mobile? I use chrome on an android and it seems that I would need to switch to FF in order to have adblocking? (Which I might, as there are ads on Chrome that even make the cellphone vibrate and redirect to the store, amongst other things)

I use and recommend Firefox with uBlock Origin.

Firefox still has a few rough edges on Android, and some small number of sites exhibit pathological performance characteristics in Mobile FF, but it's certainly good enough to be your primary solution. I keep Chrome around for when sites have problems with Mobile FF, but I find myself reaching for it less and less over time.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#200

Post by johnward »

karterk wrote: post #5

For a very long time, I did not want to use ad blockers. I have used ads in the past to monetize some of my own projects, and I really did not want to stab the creators of quality content. However, last week I finally reversed my decision and started using ad blockers. Why? Frankly, many sites are just greedy. Banners were ugly enough (and I tolerated them) but many sites these days show ads that cover the content, a…

I was in the same camp as you until a few weeks ago. I finally gave in. Found that ublock origin doesn't block many types of ads though.
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