What we break when we fix ad blocking • Hacker News Board

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#221

Post by kuschku » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

frik wrote: post #220

kuschku wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, relevant ads based on the content of the page, not based on your browsing behaviour. Google Ads based on browsing behaviour only try to sell you stuff that you already bought and no longer need. By the point the ad shows you graphics cards, like for me right now, I already bought one. When I was searching for one, the ads were showing me crayola crayons instead. Make relevant ads based on what the person needs ri…

Exactly, ads should be relevant to page content. Showing me afs based on my browsing history is downright wrong and feels etremly creepy, plus most items we already own by the time we see such ads anyway.

As I said.

And this is why I hope the current type of tracking becomes unprofitable very soon – it would reduce creepiness, and might actually improve ads to reduce tracking.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#222

Post by ForHackernews » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #202

toomuchtodo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd consider the SFBA startup scene in those same categories.

Thank you for saying that. This is very true. And, yet, somehow, we don't argue that any startup should just give their product away for free.

> And, yet, somehow, we don't argue that any startup should just give their product away for free.

Are you kidding me? It's practically heresy around here to suggest that a startup should charge money and sell a product. Try it and see yourself derided as a "lifestyle business" instead of a real startup.

HN (and VC-funded startups generally) worship at the Church of Growth above all else, and the easiest way to get that coveted "hockey stick graph" is to give everything away for free. Grow now, and worry about revenue later, so the mantra goes.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#223

Post by avn2109 » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #177

civilian wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But ad blockers are a recent innovation in controlling advertising. Billboards... you can lobby your local city or state to pass laws against obnoxious billboards, but at some point it is someone else's property, and they'll be able to put some kind of advertisement there. Ad blockers let you edit your reality, immediately and easily. It's a big change and our historical acceptance doesn't carry over.

Billboards can't track you all over the country

You might be surprised by the computerization and tracking that competently-designed out of home ad setup will run. They are surprisingly good at figuring out who drove by their billboard.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#224

Post by gress » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #219

gress wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separating out 'Desktop Chrome' from Android makes this a deliberate Apple's to Oranges comparison. They are both Google products. You're free to run 'Desktop Chrome' or Firefox on Apple's 'Deskrop' computers. Nothing anticompetitive there.

Desktop Chrome is the only version of Chrome that actually supports adblocking. The Android version doesn't have any add-on support at all.

So Apple is putting user freedom ahead of advertiser freedom in this case, whereas Google is siding with the advertisers for obvious reasons.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#225

Post by loco5niner » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 3:22 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #112

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you had a plugin that simply blanked the entire page if it contained advertising you'd be acting in a principled fashion aligned with your preferences. As it is you want to have your cake and eat it too. It may be legal and technically possible, but isn't ethical. What you're saying here is that, if you don't like advertising, your only ethical option is to never use the Web again. (Well, I suppose I can read th…

There were options. You could go to concerts, you could listen to the radio. You could go to free concerts in the park. What you couldn't do was listen to the latest Britney album when and wherever you wanted without going and buying the CD or unethically downloading it off of Napster. You could tell yourself that you were perfectly justified in doing so. In fact it was Britney's fault for not coming up with easy way…

You're getting shot down here. Perhaps if you found an argument NOT based on the music model...

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#226

Post by loco5niner » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 3:26 PM UTC

x5n1 wrote: post #94

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…

You just hate the economy and want everyone to be unemployed.

Why does the economy have to be based on trying to get people to buy things they don't need? I think he has a good point about consumerist society.