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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

#271

Post by jordanpg »

For the record, I don't want to hear or see any ads, ever.

The internet is great because it provides a channel for information to cheaply get from creators to consumers at global scale.

Sadly, all of that infrastructure and creation takes time, energy, money, etc. It's not free.

I don't take it for granted that advertising is the only way there can be an internet. I'm pretty confident that if everyone starts using adblockers, the internet will continue to exist. But will it be the internet I want?

The internet that gives me Netflix and Amazon Prime I can take or leave. The internet that gives me endless blog posts, reviews, and Q&A sites I can take or leave.

The internet that gives me API documentation, etc., chat, email, and Wikipedia I will fight for. I will pay for it. I will pay higher taxes for it. The rest I just don't care that much about, and I really doubt that many other people do either.

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

#272

Post by intrasight »

AYBABTME wrote: post #138
intrasight wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked at the guru3d site. The content is the ad - there's no need to add more ads. You just need to monetize the "ads" you already have. You are promoting these products. Negotiate with the vendor or reseller directly to get your fair share.

That's not a good idea if you want people to trust that your reviews are unbiased.

That is why Consumer Reports carries no ads, and is why I am willing to pay for their content.

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

#273

Post by intrasight »

mozumder wrote: post #214
intrasight wrote: post #113

I use uBlock Origin. I don't block ads - I block 3rd party requests. People that complain about ad blocking are indeed missing the mark. I'm fine with ads - really. But if you want them seen, you are going to have to serve them yourself. There is no going backwards - for reasons spelled out by others in this thread. So if your business depends on ads, then you are in the ad business. Web sites are going to have to be…

So, they make a CMS plugin that serves ads from same origin, instead of different origin. How would that help your user experience? (it might.. dunno)

I think it will help in two respects. If they are serving the content, they will take more responsibility for the content's message and for its effect on the user experience.

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

#274

Post by inopinatus »

jensen123 wrote: post #42

I think we really, really need cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Buying access to stuff online with a credit card is totally inconvenient, and even worse, you have no privacy then. I guess this is part of the reason why sites financed by advertising have become so prevalent. Personally, if there was an easy and private way to do so, I'd much rather pay for content than getting "free" stuff financed by ads. Inevitabl…

You're being downvoted and I think that's unfair. My reading of this article produced the same notion. My willingness to pay (in the form of being the recipient of advertising, and the associated loss of privacy) is lower than the value I receive from most content. Therefore I block the ads except on the tiny fraction of sites for which I make exceptions. Similarly I rarely cross a paywall.

Ergo, my willingness to pay is non-zero, but current fiat-currency payment services are inadequate to represent the negotiation.

I would be willing to buy (e.g. with fiat cash or another cryptocurrency) a block of quota, denominated in a well-constructed unit, for access to content. This quota could be automatically decremented within a framework of personally definable rules. It is analogous to the GB blocks I buy from my ISP, but the unit might instead represent the market value of information.

Bitcoin itself is not answer - there are limitations that preclude microtransactions at scale, and traceability issues - but some distributed cryptocurrency will be the solution. It will take luck and genius to design & establish. The Ethereum project gives me hope that a solution will be found within a couple of decades.

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

#275

Post by rasz_pl »

sputr wrote: post #17
rewqfdsa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> detect adblock One does not simply "detect adblock". Browsers are user agents. They run code in an environment optimized for user safety and convenience. These environments will always be able to tell your site's server- and client-side code exactly what it wants to hear while showing something different to the user. You can't stop it. The client will always win. We may eventually get to the point where clients use…

Actually, it can (and is routinely) done. https://github.com/brockwhittaker/Detect-Adblockers

Just clicked the demo http://www.lavancier.com/adblock/ and: "Ads are enabled in this browser. :)"

Now guess if I block ads?

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

#276

Post by pc86 »

Animats wrote: post #193

From the site: "We review the Voyager Air 2 from Corsair, this portable storage unit allows you to connect it to USB 3.0 and WIFI. It actually comes in a 1 TB HDD model as well, which we review. This great looking device might be what you're looking for to move or stream your content from and with the latest Corsair Smartphone it might just be what the doctor ordered." "One of the CPU cooler makers we do adore, Noctu…

I'm sure you could find plenty of negative reviews on the site as well.

Just because someone says a product is great doesn't mean they are being paid to do so, or even that they received it for free. It could just be that the product is great for the use case they reviewed.

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

#277

Post by intrasight »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #267

While there's obviously nothing wrong with directly asking users to not adblock guru3d, the long-term solution is definitely to find another business model. I'm not a regular reader of Guru3D, but would it be a stretch to imagine that the community would willingly pay $1 a month to see the content you put on the site? Maybe you can shuffle only people with adblockers to the paid version of the site, and allow people…

I pay to use the Consumer Reports content. I think if Guru3D became the 'Consumer Reports' of gaming hardware, then they could probably get paying viewers. Here's some other ideas. As long as they are doing test builds, how about selling detailed instructions for those builds. And if they get all this hardware donated by vendors, how about selling the rigs they build. Perhaps they can get a "brand" markup - sort of like selling NASCAR pace cars.

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

#278

Post by jhall1468 »

click170 wrote: post #234
jhall1468 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a load of BS. The reality is most people install a blocker and never think twice. Your implication that people make a value decision for every website they visit is laughable, and more importantly, exactly the opposite of what most people do.

You take another breath every few seconds but you don't do it consciously. Not everything you do is a conscious decision you actively make in the forefront of your mind. Your comments lead me to believe you have skin in the game because you seem determined to not acknowledge that the value of something is what your customers will pay for it. If they aren't willing to pay for it then it has no value in the market, reg…

> Your comments lead me to believe you have skin in the game because you seem determined to not acknowledge that the value of something is what your customers will pay for it.

None what-so-ever, other than having several websites I enjoy that use ads for revenue generation. My current work is in Business SAAS.

> If they aren't willing to pay for it then it has no value in the market, regardless of the value you've assigned to it.

You don't understand markets. If a minority of users aren't willing to "pay" for it, that doesn't make it without value. By your logic, movies are pirated by a minority and thus, they have no value. With movies it matters less because they've compensated for it by charging people that actually pay more and more.

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

#279

Post by jhall1468 »

lazyjones wrote: post #241
jhall1468 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would it become the only option when other forms keep popping up? Even with very hypothetical 100% penetration of (unblockable) ad blockers, this won't be the case. Name me one other form of a successful website that does not use one of the following methods of monetization: ads, donations, currency-exchange or none (free) Because none of those are recent. > You must have missed the NY times, the largest german…

> Name me one other form of a successful website that does not use one of the following methods of monetization: My former company (founded in 2000; majority sold in 2014; ~2.5 million users) has 95% revenue from other sources than those you named, it's a price comparison website. Most competitors operate in a similar fashion. Ads are used only as an insignificant additional revenue source (with lots of doubt and dis…

> large classified ad pages

It literally has the word "ad" in it.

> dating websites

Either ad-driven or membership based, in which case the membership is received as a currency-exchange.

> real estate brokers (syndicated/search websites)

Just because your content is an ad doesn't make it less an ad.

> airbnb

See above.

> hotel and flight booking sites.

See above.

Every one of those sites are classified ad sites, which is problematic on two fronts:

1. All the content is the ad. 2. It's not unique content, it's content created for the sole purposes of selling something.

Literally everything you listed requires that there be something to sell, whether a product or sex/dating. So the Internet should effectively be one big shopping district?

> OK, how about the newly founded austrian branch of swiss publication NZZ - it started with 0 users and paywall.

A subsidiary of a 300 year old establishment is your example of a startup making it day one with a paywall. Okay...

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

#280

Post by jhall1468 »

imgabe wrote: post #244
jhall1468 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a load of BS. The reality is most people install a blocker and never think twice. Your implication that people make a value decision for every website they visit is laughable, and more importantly, exactly the opposite of what most people do.

> most people install a blocker This is exactly the point. People have to actively seek out and find an ad blocker. They experience the Internet with ads, then decide that it is not worth it. It doesn't just happen. So what is your argument? That people are idiots and cannot correctly assess how valuable something is to them? Personally, I've whitelisted sites that are known to have useful and unobtrusive ads. I've a…

> If publishers really think it's a problem, they can easily disable the site for anyone with an active ad blocker.

Anti-ad blocker blocker's are a thing. UBlock and Adblock both include them. At the end of the day all it takes is regex.

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