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The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

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Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#201

Post by imgabe »

bad_user wrote: post #181
imgabe wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most content is worthless. Content that has actual monetary value to someone, market research data for instance, has no trouble finding people willing to pay for it. The fact is most "news" and other article type sites do not serve a purpose other than satisfying some idle curiosity or passing time. Very little of it has a material impact on anyone's day to day life. The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate…

You are probably a middle-class caucasian male from a western country. I can make that assumption because this willingness to pay that you're talking about cannot be a reality for the poor or for citizens of underdeveloped countries, or in other words ... the majority.

You're right. And addressing issues like poverty is one of the many better things we could be doing than trying to figure out how Buzzfeed can get paid to tell us about 35 Things Only Parapalegic Law School Students from Cincinatti Will Understand.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#202

Post by sixdimensional »

junto wrote: post #11
cm2187 wrote: post #7

I am amazed that their response to adblockers is more targetted ads. My main reason for using an adblocker isn't to block ads, which don't bother me that much. It is to block tracking accross websites. Telling me that they will do more tracking in response isn't really going to change my mind...

Sites need to consider going back to the pre-Double-Click world, where they self hosted and self managed ads. I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads, I just can't accept the intrusive tracking, including being retargeted.

Data sharing agreements would make self-hosting ads irrelevant. You would have to either not support organizations that would share your data with (or without) your consent, or better/stronger laws would have to be enacted to make it a regulatory issue.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#203

Post by cm2187 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #184
cm2187 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the tracking becomes specific to the site visited (same origin policy), not cross-websites, and I don't have a problem with that. Now there is also the debate of whether all sites deserve to be able to run javascript. I say no. But some people here think that even rendering a blog article should require a lot of client side scripting.

> No, the tracking becomes specific to the site visited (same origin policy), not cross-websites, and I don't have a problem with that. You're assuming the server-side scripts won't share data with a central server.

They might but how would they correlate me on abc.com and me on xyz.com if they don't have some form of cookie?

Browser fingerprinting is the only way I can think of, and between the phasing out of flash, java and silverlight, and having javascript disabled by default, browser fingerprinting is pretty much toothless.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#204

Post by robgibbons »

mozumder wrote: post #188
robgibbons wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to justify my right to privacy. All you need to know is that I don't want my browsing habits tracked and correlated across virtually every site I visit, by a small handful of companies that have nothing to do with the content I am seeking. The burden is not on me to justify why I disagree with these practices.

The burden is on you to justify your right to privacy. Otherwise it just makes you look bad, as if you're trying to defend indefensible actions. Remember, you're visiting THEIR sites. They aren't visiting your sites. They have something you want when you visit their sites, and you have to offer something in return. If you're unable to justify yourself, then companies (both advertisers and media publishers) will proce…

With all due respect, advertising networks have been tracking people for far longer than there have been ad blockers and privacy guards. This category of programs was literally created in response to the existence of such networks. Tracking companies will do as they please, regardless of any steps I take to defend my data and my privacy.

The burden is on the shoulders of website operators to present meaningful alternatives to intrusive tracking as their core monetization strategy. It is obvious that those who do not will wither and die. Such is the way of capitalism.

The onus is not mine to explain myself for using privacy protection programs. It is theirs to recognize this reality and to pivot, or die.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#205

Post by douche »

I turned off AdBlock on their site. A clean, attractive site immediately transformed into a supermarket sales flyer, except with animated ads. No thanks.

I don't know what the answer is. Display ads are dead or dying, though. I get a lot more revenue on my websites from Amazon affiliate links than I do from AdSense. Probably it's going to look more like paid reviews and advertising masquerading as content.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#206

Post by jhall1468 »

imgabe wrote: post #196
jhall1468 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most content is worthless. What nonsense. Most content's worth is variable depending on who is consuming it. The issue with ad-blockers is that it isn't killing worthless content. It's killing content that survives between the insane traffic of Facebook and the complete lack of traffic in personal blogs that 12 people visit. > The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate, free material. Yes, because the quali…

> It's killing content that survives between the insane traffic of Facebook and the complete lack of traffic in personal blogs that 12 people visit. What does that tell you about the value of that content that people are not even willing to be exposed to an ad in order to consume it? This is the proper application of "the customer is always right". When the customer doesn't want what you're selling, it's not the cust…

> When the customer doesn't want what you're selling, it's not the customer's fault.

They do want it, but for free. And while they still consume it, for free, they hide behind some non-sense about tracking or privacy, even though if those two issues were resolved they would block it any way because it's not convenient to white list a site. Duckduckgo is perfect evidence of that.

> No, it's not. Sometimes the unbiased opinion of someone who doesn't have to please advertisers results in a much higher quality product.

And much of the time it isn't.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#207

Post by threatofrain »

BogusIKnow wrote: post #122
teddyh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all valid reasons, but they are not the reason I first started to block ads: • They impose a surprisingly huge cognitive load. Even if you (like most people nowadays) are used to them and hence “do not notice them”, that very habit of ignoring them actually takes more brain power than you’d think.

Not reading them is the same as blocking them. To gain moral high ground people who compare adblocking to theft are required to read every ad on every website they encounter. The moral distinction between "I do not read ads" and "I block ads" is an illusion.

Merely looking at ads aren't enough. Purchasing behavior must ultimately be effected somewhere down the line, to the extent that someone can determine changes in sales were due at least somewhat to ads. If someone can't find a causal or predictive relationship between ads and customer behavior, then they will lose cause to invest in some advertising venue.

If a site is consistently staying alive only through ads, it means that money is somehow flowing from some people to the ad-supported content. We are all already paying for content through some convoluted pathway.

We should just start paying with minimal middlemen, since ad companies bill our attention and build profiles about us from our behavioral data.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#208

Post by mozumder »

douche wrote: post #205

I turned off AdBlock on their site. A clean, attractive site immediately transformed into a supermarket sales flyer, except with animated ads. No thanks. I don't know what the answer is. Display ads are dead or dying, though. I get a lot more revenue on my websites from Amazon affiliate links than I do from AdSense. Probably it's going to look more like paid reviews and advertising masquerading as content.

Don't people go to their sites for shopping purposes anyways?

What's the point of these sites if not to tell you what to buy?

People used to pay money to buy magazines like Computer Shopper just for the ads...

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#209

Post by dwild »

imgabe wrote: post #137
jhall1468 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly this kind of attitude that is going to lead to paywalls for virtually every type of content on the Internet. And the people that use the most heavy-handed approaches with ad-blocking are going to be the same people that are screaming "NOT MY PROBLEM" while the ship goes down. Their business model doesn't require changes to reality. Their business model requires the end-user to accept reality for what it…

Most content is worthless. Content that has actual monetary value to someone, market research data for instance, has no trouble finding people willing to pay for it. The fact is most "news" and other article type sites do not serve a purpose other than satisfying some idle curiosity or passing time. Very little of it has a material impact on anyone's day to day life. The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate…

> Most content is worthless.

Which is why ads are the only way to monetize it and be able to actually have it somewhere.

> The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate, free material.

Except nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it. If it's not ad networks and if it's not donations (again, mostly because most content is worthless, and probably also because most people are greedy), who will pay for it?

> Very little of it has a material impact on anyone's day to day life.

How old are you? I'm 23, my youth was spent on the internet learning. I wasn't able to pay any content at the time. The website I was reading from were living out of ads, some of them made by minor, that were later able to make a decent living out of it. Yeah we have a bunch of website getting enough donations, but they need to be in the top 100 to actually survive from it.

When Youtube Red was announced, I was freaking happy (except about the fact that I'm Canadian and I won't be able to enjoy it), most arguments I've seen against ads was that there was no alternative... except now people are simply complaining that Youtube is simply being greedy and that they can already get that using adblock...

It's probably too late to make people realize that content isn't free, that offering it isn't free either. We are in a world where ads and huge investment gave us the opportunity to share and produce really cheaply and it seems like it's all free... you remove the ads, you remove any way to pay for that cheap but existing cost.

I still have a little hope on donations though, seeing the amount some live streamers are able to make on Twitch, seeing how Patreon is a way to make a living, seeing how some crowdfunding is able to produce some really decent content (Tabletop, Conman, Fallout Nuka Break and VGHS to name a few), etc... I hope it will grow and allow us to keep at least the same amount of content as before.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#210

Post by jo909 »

Potential buyers want sources to learn about products, compared them, have uninfluenced and honest reviews to help them make decisions.

Vendors want their products reviewed. And I think they understand that reviewers need to be financially independent to be believable, so directly paying reviewers does not work.

Both sides will find a way to get what they want, there is clear financial motivation to keep the review business alive. Money is not the problem here, only how to distribute it. I do not worry about this kind of content.

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