The adblocking revolution is months away • Hacker News Board

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#271

Post by hsod » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

dlandis wrote: post #255

hsod wrote: post #244

A thought experiment for the "there's nothing wrong with AdBlock" set: Imagine a blog with quality original content that is relevant to your interests. Imagine that, the first time you go to that site, you see the following text: "This site and it's content are supported by advertisement. If you would like to read our content the only thing we ask is that you do not use an ad blocker on our pages. If this arrangement…

For many people it will depend on the nature and quantity of ads and trackers they have. Reddit has a similar thing where they thank you for not using ad blockers or perhaps gently encourage you not to -- and since they only have a few unobtrusive ads, many people do turn off their blockers.

That seems to me a red herring. The site requires you to agree to view their ads, or not access it. The nature of the ads is irrelevant-- if they are obtrusive enough to make the viewing experience unacceptable to you, your recourse is to stop viewing the site.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#272

Post by s73v3r » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

zodPod wrote: post #25

>>Of course, at this point we should step back and ask “why were the adverts there in the first place?” Oh yes, because they help pay for the content. In some – well, many, almost all – cases, they pay for all of the content. Honestly? I don't give a crap. Too many places have abused it and thrown stupid crap in just so they can make money. Just like the idiots who are careless with fireworks and then states ban them…

Then stop using them. Problem solved.

On an unrelated note, we're gonna need you to come in and work for free this weekend.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#273

Post by mirimir » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

hsod wrote: post #244

A thought experiment for the "there's nothing wrong with AdBlock" set: Imagine a blog with quality original content that is relevant to your interests. Imagine that, the first time you go to that site, you see the following text: "This site and it's content are supported by advertisement. If you would like to read our content the only thing we ask is that you do not use an ad blocker on our pages. If this arrangement…

Yes. Unless the site owner agreed to accept all liability for malware potentially dropped by ads. They would need funds in escrow, and a claims mechanism.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#274

Post by redthrowaway » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

STRML wrote: post #162

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…

One optimization I do often - don't load the FB scripts until someone actually hovers over an FB like button or share box. 99.9% of the time, they never do. In the meantime, just mock the look of the button. We even mocked the like counts et al by polling FB's API from teh server.

What if they click the button before the script loads?

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#275

Post by s73v3r » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC

zodPod wrote: post #99

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.

Which will likely, hopefully, just create a new media. Things like Periscope. Newer generations will ignore the big media garbage and follow citizen reporting. This is all speculation and I'm sure there are problems with it but these big companies will just be digging their own graves with bull crap like that. They already have enough trouble selling print media who's going to pay them for their content (which is 80%…

"Things like Periscope."

And how do you expect things like Periscope to stay in business without earning revenue?

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#276

Post by wan23 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:44 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.

Of course not. Apple wants to add support for blocking ads on mobile web to encourage companies to write native apps that can contain unblockable ads. That way Apple gets more content on its platform and potentially a piece of the ad revenue with iAd.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#277

Post by s73v3r » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

someuser1 wrote: post #20

Honestly, the experience on some of these mobile websites is so horrible that I've actually started boycotting them when they're just too bad to endure. It's funny, as the screens get larger, the content space stays the same or shrinks. I think, "ooh more content on one page!" and they think "ooh more ads to cram in!" It's just the worst. Ads with tiny close buttons, ads that mimic the content on the page in order to…

Ok, you don't want their shit. How do you propose to give the creators of the content you're visiting revenue so they can continue?

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#278

Post by na85 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

kuni-toko-tachi wrote: post #84

"People are getting p*ssed off with the huge data loads pages impose without their consent" This is an absurd statement. Users know that many sites are ad-supported. Whether they like it or not is independent of that, but consent is given by visiting them. Complaining that sites need ad revenue to support their operations is childish. The fair solution is not ad-blocking tools, but a general browser settings that say…

Oh please. Spare us the sanctimonious BS. It's no different at all? In any way?

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#279

Post by s73v3r » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

joesmo wrote: post #181

"But wait, what about the moral dimension? The fact that if you block the ads, the sites lose their income?" What a ridiculous point. Sure the advertisers want to make this into a moral issue, but is it? No. It's not. Advertisers just feel entitled. They are not actually entitled to display their ads or make money. Even bringing up this point like it's a valid point for debate drags the quality of the article down. A…

Apparently just like you feel entitled to enjoy the content others have made for free.

Re: The adblocking revolution is months away

#280

Post by talmand » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 5:47 PM UTC

robmcm wrote: post #160

talmand wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that Google has been a better influence with Webkit than Apple has. In my day-to-day work the only time Safari comes up is on iOS, and only then because we have no other choice. The only time recently I've opened Safari on the desktop is to debug some obscure Javascript deficiency that only existed on that browser that also happened to exist in iOS.

Please remember that Apple created Webkit from KHTML, without them Chrome would have been way behind where they are now, both in terms of technology and pushing a new rendering engine. They may well have purchased Opera... Toady Google have more resources invested in Blink than Apple do in Safari, but don't forget how we got here.

I know all that and I believe there has been controversy over Apple and KHTML. But, I see it as a matter that Apple started playing but dropped the ball for Google to pick up to move forward.

There's no telling where things would be if Google had gone a different route. What if they bought Opera? What if they forked KHTML themselves? It could have been better, it could have been worse. I don't speculate on that, I just react to what I see. Right now, to me, Google has been better about moving things forward with Webkit than Apple has in quite a while.