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“We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

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Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#241

Post by phaemon »

morgante wrote: post #92
phaemon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would be too much. Why would it? I'd like to see those ad-laden pages dropped from HN also. As well as sites with paywalls. There are plenty of other pages on the web that can be featured instead.

Genuine question: do you think all journalism should be done for free? I can somewhat an understand an opposition to advertising or paywalls. Opposing both is unconscionable.

For free? I'm not sure those gossip-mongering petty scribblers would do anything for free.

But you have me wrong on paywalls: I'd fully support them going paywalled. In fact, I fully support them going off the Web onto their own proprietary network (like the Compuserve and AOL of old) and charging thousands (if not millions) of $CURRENCY a year for access. That would be great.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#242

Post by devishard »

x0x0 wrote: post #219
tracker1 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it mean that?

Because no-tracking image ads served publisher-side with no verification are worth a small fraction -- perhaps 10% at most -- of what with-tracking ads are worth.

There are other ways to make money besides ads.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#243

Post by devishard »

x0x0 wrote: post #208
Silhouette wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get a free pass on ethics just because ethics are inconvenient for your business model. I think calling this an ethical issue is quite a stretch. In many cases, we're talking about visitors who are not only enjoying the content from someone else's site completely for free, but also employing tools that actively modify the intended presentation of that content to the detriment of the host site's operators. A…

Yes, we're in a thread dedicated to complaining about site owners who offer a choice: view ads or pay us money, and we're complaining about the ads they show. Where the giant screaming subtext is wah wah wah, I want this for free to me and with no ads.

It takes a special kind of arrogance to make accusations against people you don't know anything about.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#244

Post by Silhouette »

devishard wrote: post #239
Silhouette wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get a free pass on ethics just because ethics are inconvenient for your business model. I think calling this an ethical issue is quite a stretch. In many cases, we're talking about visitors who are not only enjoying the content from someone else's site completely for free, but also employing tools that actively modify the intended presentation of that content to the detriment of the host site's operators. A…

> And now you're saying that not only should the site operators make their content freely available and accept that some visitors will circumvent possibly the only way they have of generating revenue, those operators should also be actively responsible for vetting any third party content they incorporate within their site in case the third party is hostile No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's unethical to have ad…

The way you propose, by vetting ads, has been used successfully

For businesses running large enough sites to operate their own scheme, sure. Facebook ads are pretty safe, for example. Unfortunately, this isn't a realistic option for smaller sites, and neither are any of the other things you mentioned in most cases. Alternatives like donations or PWYW have been tried and they almost always fail. That's why ad-funded web sites are still so common!

I don't think this discussion is going to go anywhere useful. You're objecting to a behaviour that is widely useful -- incorporating content served by third parties as part of a site -- on the basis that site operators with little if any revenue aren't operating to an impossibly high standard of safety checking at their own expense to prevent a small risk of third party malware being served by their site without their knowledge or consent. Furthermore, you have offered no plausible better alternatives for most of those site operators. In a world complying with your rules, most of the modern web doesn't exist, because no-one would "ethically" be allowed to contribute to it without falling short of your standards.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#245

Post by Silhouette »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #240
Silhouette wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing known-risky formats that keep failing over and over is negligent. But if you look at this from the opposite direction, you're essentially arguing that we should only use technologies that are known, or at least reasonably expected, to be extremely safe. Given that in general humanity hasn't yet figured out how to create such technologies, and that numerous formats we use every day on the web to great overall…

You can use a theorem prover like Coq to generate software that proves an image parser correct.

Existence proof of a 100% safe image parser built using a formal theorem prover, please.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#246

Post by Natanael_L »

slig wrote: post #209
nkrisc wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too can not figure out why YT wants me to watch things again. Or also common, the last 10 seconds of a video is just links to the user's other videos, so I move on. Then YT wants me to "finish watching" it. No, I don't want to finish watching the last 5 seconds of an outro.

> Then YT wants me to "finish watching" it. No, I don't want to finish watching the last 5 seconds of an outro. I have this issue with Netflix. I have tons of movies on "continue watching" that the only thing left to watch is the credits.

Scroll to the end, let it spend 5-10 seconds to finish. Done.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#247

Post by Dylan16807 »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #240
Silhouette wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing known-risky formats that keep failing over and over is negligent. But if you look at this from the opposite direction, you're essentially arguing that we should only use technologies that are known, or at least reasonably expected, to be extremely safe. Given that in general humanity hasn't yet figured out how to create such technologies, and that numerous formats we use every day on the web to great overall…

You can use a theorem prover like Coq to generate software that proves an image parser correct.

For an image parser all you really need is to use a language without buffer overflows.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#248

Post by john_reel »

alkonaut wrote: post #168
realityking wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose content producers earn their income, if you think neither ads nor paywalls are acceptable?

Ads are fine, "ad networks" are (often) evil. Content producers couldself-host ads without tracking and do tgeir own ad sales and no one will block them. Paywalls are also fine. Content producers choice. It's (un-annotated) links to paywalled content that is annoying.

Reddit, Mozilla, and Project Wonderful have pulled this off well.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#249

Post by x0x0 »

devishard wrote: post #242
x0x0 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no-tracking image ads served publisher-side with no verification are worth a small fraction -- perhaps 10% at most -- of what with-tracking ads are worth.

There are other ways to make money besides ads.

Yes, paywalls / subscriptions. Which this thread is notably dedicated to bitching about.

Other than that, not really. As demonstrated both by personal experience (I've worked for a large pub; many acquaintances work for large-ish pubs) and the utter lack of success of the majority of publishers attempting this.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#250

Post by ryan-c »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #151
ryan-c wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is within their (the website) responsibility to ensure that ads and/or content should not cause harm to a visitor. I don't think that's been established. With the current state of advertising on the internet, it's not even possible to do this. In general, websites use advertising networks which do not allow them to proactively vet the content. Even if they did, no amount of vetting can guarantee the content is b…

>exploits in image parsers, font parsers, video parsers, audio parsers, etc. come out fairly often. Exploits in jpg/png are very rare. At worst, all you have to do is make the ad network [re]compress the image.

> Exploits in jpg/png are very rare.

I would like to introduce you to libpng: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-7294...

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