The adblocking revolution is months away • Hacker News Board

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#201

Post by dhimes » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

EugeneOZ wrote: post #176

Good call to start revolution from the another side - from side of web entrepreneurs. If monetization of your web project done with ads, do FIGHT with ad blockers, such as AdBlock, AdBlock Plus and others. Change markup, track html changes after page load, find other ways to resist - don't let them ruin your business. It's important to stay "good citizens" - don't use popups, don't use huge banners, but it's up to us…

Starting with known offenders is ok- a kind of collective intelligence on the worst ones. The trackers. Fuck them.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#202

Post by bunderbunder » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:16 PM UTC

AlexMuir wrote: post #79

I completely understand why people use Adblock - it improves the user experience. Ironically hiding adverts is a just a side-effect; the improvement comes from speeding up page loads, and cutting down on cpu usage and bandwidth use. (I install Adblock for my mother to stop her seeing scams, but that's another thing entirely.) I've spent the past week optimising How a Car Works for speed (mobile is 55% of our traffic…

It's my (located in USA) precious data allowance, too. At the price I pay for mobile data - my plan comes out to $0.025/MB - I would not be at all surprised to discover that I'm paying more to be advertised to than you're being paid to carry the ad.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#203

Post by hiou » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:16 PM UTC

usaphp wrote: post #134

hiou wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at moves made by Apple in the iPhone era it becomes quite clear and does not require bias. - Ban flash. Biggest competition to native apps. - Cripple the iOS web browser just enough that web apps trying to have native style performance will struggle. - Release their own map to push Google out of their ecosystem. When that didn't work now they are trying this. Apple's business model is pretty simple. Aquir…

> "Cripple the iOS web browser just enough that web apps trying to have native style performance will struggle." Are you saying that web apps run on android browser smoother than on iOs Safari? I don't think so... > "Ban Flash. Biggest competition for apps". I think Flash was banned because it's crap in terms of security and battery drainer, not much because its a competition to apps. You seem to be pretty bias in yo…

The statement of discussion was

> User experience is what Apple puts above pretty much everything else, and they’ve decided that they don’t like it the experience available through the ad-supported web, and so they’re going to do something about it.

My points were evidence to the contrary of that statement. I was not discussing the motivations of Google in regards to their users.

My point is that Apple's business model is about expansive control of a highly profitable user base. It uses an expensive device purchase(which increases the pain point of a user leaving) through aggressive marketing to attempt to be the primary source of as many monetary behaviors of that user as possible.

Flash(and upcoming AIR) was at the time a true contender for becoming the cross platform desktop/native type application interface. Once Apple banned Flash, companies moved away from the platform and it withered.

Since you brought up the Android browser, we can use it as an example of a company who would prefer to increase the use of the web. Google actively tries to increase adoption of the mobile Chrome browser as it cannot control the the updating schedules of phone vendors. Bases upon browser statistics it appears Google is having some success.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-US-monthly-201406-...

Google is not any better, but we can look at the difference in their behavior as an example of a difference in business model. Google and Facebook are somewhat dependent(at this time) on some attributes of the web. This difference in these companies(including Apple) can be shown in their support for deep linking.

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/james-turner-urx-deep-link...

And to prove I am not picking on Apple directly, part of Google's business model is to leverage their search results to expand into other monetary behaviors of their users as well.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/15/8613839/google-adding-buy-...

Technology implementations by large tech companies are typically more indicative of their business intentions as opposed to their abilities. I'm not saying that Apple is any worse than any other company. Only that their particular business model at this time is, in my opinion, the most dangerous to the overall ecosystem and tech economy.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#204

Post by Xophmeister » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:17 PM UTC

tonyblundell wrote: post #53

BukhariH wrote: post #9

As expected this is going to have a negative affect on ad revenues but what people forget is that publishers won't just accept lower revenues. They're going innovate. The easiest thing to implement would be a paywall but after the paywall we are going to see a rise in microtransactions for content. That being said there are advantages to the subscription model. Maybe, publishers will stop posting click-baity headline…

The web is 20 years old. I think if this was going to happen, it would have happened by now. Outside of a few niches, people just aren't willing to pay to read websites. What I could see happening is premium content being bundled by ISPs. Pay for X package from Y ISP, get content from A, B and C websites. Kind-of like how TV channels are bundled. In all likelihood though, I think advertising will continue as is. Adve…

    What I could see happening is premium content being bundled
    by ISPs. Pay for X package from Y ISP, get content from A, B
    and C websites. Kind-of like how TV channels are bundled.

That's a different can of worms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#205

Post by interpol_p » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:19 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #191

rayiner wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be both. If people find the ad supported web unpleasant, doing the right thing for the user experience is also something that benefits their bottom line.

If people incorrectly assume that the alternative to "free with ads" is "free with no ads" then we will have a market failure.

I think "free with ads" is being done backwards most of the time. It's all about analysing the user to algorithmically determine the best pre-designed ad to serve them. It's tacky and people are extremely good at ignoring it, even without ad blockers.

"Free with ads" should be that my favourite authors get paid to use a product or service and then write about it if they like it. I don't want to see ads for things that a computer predicts I will like, I want to see ads for things that someone I enjoy reading, and share similar tastes with, likes.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#206

Post by muraiki » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

hiou wrote: post #130

Luc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, aren't your comments as much an example of Apple bias as what you're commenting on, but with the sign reversed?

If you look at moves made by Apple in the iPhone era it becomes quite clear and does not require bias. - Ban flash. Biggest competition to native apps. - Cripple the iOS web browser just enough that web apps trying to have native style performance will struggle. - Release their own map to push Google out of their ecosystem. When that didn't work now they are trying this. Apple's business model is pretty simple. Aquir…

It's worth noting what Steve Jobs said at the introduction of the iPhone:

"The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps.

And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we’ve got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today."

There was no SDK initially. Webapps were the _only_ way to put your app on the iPhone. My understanding is that developers demanded an SDK, though.

It seems that part of the reason for not wanting native Apps is because Jobs felt that policing an app store would be too difficult. As to whether the current browser is purposely crippled for the sake of directing people to native apps, I think that might be a bit difficult to prove. Is it perhaps instead that native apps naturally provide better performance, developers demanded it, and so Apple focuses its resources there? Shrug.

Some more detail here: http://www.cultofmac.com/125180/steve-jobs-was-originally-de...

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#207

Post by ChrisLTD » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #188

luso_brazilian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll bet Apple won't consider "Install from Apple Store" type messages as ads. Apple won't consider anything as ads. What they provided was the hooks for developers to implement "Content Blocking Safari Extensions" [1]. To quote the docs: "Your app extension is responsible for supplying a JSON file to Safari. The JSON consists of an array of rules (triggers and actions) for blocking specified content. Safari conver…

Apple provides hooks so that a web page can display an official, system supported "there is an app for this web site, tap here to download it" banner. I will bet $5 that Apple does not provide a way to block those.

I did a few minutes of research into this. The app banners are triggered by a meta tag, so there won't be a way to block those.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#208

Post by dhimes » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #188

luso_brazilian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll bet Apple won't consider "Install from Apple Store" type messages as ads. Apple won't consider anything as ads. What they provided was the hooks for developers to implement "Content Blocking Safari Extensions" [1]. To quote the docs: "Your app extension is responsible for supplying a JSON file to Safari. The JSON consists of an array of rules (triggers and actions) for blocking specified content. Safari conver…

Apple provides hooks so that a web page can display an official, system supported "there is an app for this web site, tap here to download it" banner. I will bet $5 that Apple does not provide a way to block those.

But is that really an ad? If I go to CNN, and CNN tells me I can use the same site in a native app, I'm not sure that quite counts. Now if CNN carries (for a fee) a download link for an app for something different, a brokerage house, or Ford, or something, now that would be interesting to see if they block it.

My guess is that they would initially, then relax the blocking. Seems to be the preferred way to manipulate the populace these days (unless you have fear as a tool- fear is way better).

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#209

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

7952 wrote: post #145

lifty wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, you could shift the responsibility of displaying ads and tracking users to the publishers, with requirements to publish back to the ad networks granular information about every impression. The ad networks could then check for cheating by randomly accessing the publishing website to make sure all the requests are reported back by the publishers.

Or shift the responsibility for displaying content onto the ad network! At least the page might load more quickly if Google are serving it.

This inversion seems likely to be the way it goes. Networks buying content (TV model), rather than publishers buying ads (newspaper model).

People keep trying to start paid-for publishing networks. Maybe Netflix will start reaching out to prominent youtubers and take them on as series? Maybe Reddit should find a way of giving "gold" to the link target of a post as well as just commentators?

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#210

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #193

MadcapJake wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the New York Times....pretty sure they're not all "bullshit media rewriters" there. Expect a LOT more "Become a member" or "Subscribe to..." websites as adblockers become more popular.

With all my respect to quality media like NYT, I don't want a full-scale subscription. What I'd like is paying a few cents for a specific article in a hassle-free way. Micropayments are hard because of the transaction costs, but this seems to slowly change (see e.g. flattr). I wish more sites offered a per-view zero-setup one-click micropayment solution. What's more interesting is what Google will do if their ads rev…

There's more problem with per-article payments than transaction costs. E.g., how I know if I want to pay for particular article - maybe it's a useless crap that isn't even worth my time, let alone money? I could pay _after_ reading, but then the publisher has no guarantee I would bother to, after all I've already got what I wanted.

You'd say "well, NYT is so good you would want to pay for _any_ article published there!" - but then why wouldn't I subscribe if I value them so much?