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Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

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Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#291

Post by dblohm7 »

david2777 wrote: post #228
drdaeman wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Linkbubble free software, or they just made some agreement with author to use/rebrand it? (I always assumed it's proprietary, but seeing that others are FLOSS forks, would love to be wrong about this one.)

It was purchased by an unnamed startup recently. I guess maybe it was Brave? http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/04/link-bubble-is-under...

It must have been: Brave co-founder Brian Bondy blogged about that purchase several months ago. http://www.brianbondy.com/blog/171/the-link-bubble-android-w...

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#292

Post by mschuster91 »

tutuca wrote: post #240
jordigh wrote: post #70

I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…

Rio stripped street ads because of visual pollution [1]. Quito and some other cities in Ecuador did the same. It didn't impact the economy negatively. It makes the city way more pleasant to walk around. This is specially annoying in "newspaper" sites, where content should be king (I mean, guys, you are already ton of money selling your printed version) and you are welcomed with a full page ad that is not related to t…

> I mean, guys, you are already ton of money selling your printed version

Not at all. Printed paper is definitely on the decline - just compare what's easier to do e.g. at a train or while drinking your morning coffee: holding a huge-ass 1 m² newspaper while the train is shaking and the crowd makes it impossible to stretch your arm, or, holding a notebook/tablet/phablet to read.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#293

Post by billconan »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #164
billconan wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to say exactly the same thing. I block ads because I don't want to see ads at all. As long as there is the ad blocker, I don't want to use brave.

If you don't want to see ads at all why not just refrain from visiting the offending sites?

the apparent answer is because I need the content.

admittedly, ad is a legit monetization method. browsing a site with ads blocked is like pirating a software.

but some sites are doing it too much, for example, I often see ad blocker blocks 40 more ads on a single page. that's insane!

some commercials are super retarded, like those Geico ones!

there was a Geico commercial with a single line: "you can't unwatch this commercial because you have already watched it!" Man, I'd pay super hard to block it.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#294

Post by oldmanjay »

lbotos wrote: post #149
jhall1468 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on your definition of manipulation. Most people consider manipulation to be unfair or unscrupulous. Knowing a motto or the name of a brand is hardly either. I also happen to know what "get serious about social" refers to even though I've never seen an ad by them, nor have I ever been in a position which would make me a customer. There's nothing "sneaky" advertising techniques. They are well-known.

I know my argument stands on shakey ground, but brand awareness (what you define as knowing a motto or brand name) is absolutely a form of manipulation. Apple has enough money, to buy enough ads, to be in enough places, that they can get their message to the masses. "Pear computers" (an imaginary computer startup who makes hardware better than apple but has no money) who don't have the power (money) to make that camp…

Your argument didn't get any less shaky, unless you consider any interaction with an agenda, and therefore every interaction you will ever have, to be manipulation.

If you do I feel a great amount of sympathy for you. You must feel inundated.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#295

Post by ashark »

wfo wrote: post #170
jordigh wrote: post #70

I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…

I agree ads are bad but the current state of the web is disgusting, it's barely recognizable as a conduit for any real information. People hail the internet as a great way to find information -- if you type anything into the google search bar you're curious about, you either get wikipedia, which is clean and usually pretty great if incomplete, or clickbait ad-filled trash that gives you one sentence of content before…

Google either lost and surrendered or simply stopped caring about the war against crappy spam sites in search results sometime around '08/'09. Combining with a bunch of other things this led, IMO, to a reversal in what had been a steady increase in the quality of the web[1]. By around '11/'12 most of the web that wasn't crappy spam sites came to strongly resemble crappy spam sites. Anything like real, quality content not on a handful of major sites (e.g. Wikipedia) is either gone or impossible to find via search without knowing precisely what you're looking for.

See also: all sites and news organizations everywhere embracing terrible clickbait titles over traditional, informative ones.

[1] Like a massive jump in Javascript use and page sizes killing performance, and the expansion of Facebook/Twitter and the related death of the "no-one knows you're a dog" web.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#296

Post by ohthehugemanate »

munificent wrote: post #267
rorykoehler wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fall into the camp of blocking all ads because frankly I don't like them. They are visual pollution. I also doubt I would pay for written content (maybe on a very rare occasion I might) if given a micro-payments solution because it doesn't seem worth paying for. I write blog posts from time to time and I do it for pleasure because I enjoy writing about things that interest me and sharing it with others. Honestly I…

> I write blog posts from time to time and I do it for pleasure because I enjoy writing about things that interest me and sharing it with others. I do the same thing, but I realized a while back there is a flaw in this model. It means the available creative works—which in turn effectively means the engine of culture—is determined almost entirely by people who are well-off enough to have the free time to do that. I do…

Careful about letting "perfect" be the enemy of "good enough". Culture has always been determined by people who are well off enough to spend time on it. Even the people who are commissioned creators (Dickens was paid by the word, Mozart had aristocratic sponsors) spent thousands of hours working for free to get to the point where anyone would pay them.

Further, it's not like ads have been some democratizing element for cultural creation. They pay a pittance for everyone but the large traffic generators. No one is quitting their job at Denny's to become a full time blogger paid by google adwords. The independent instagram/youtube/blogger "celebrities" all still keep full time jobs until they get enough sponsorship to pay the bills.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#298

Post by pdkl95 »

ellyagg wrote: post #190
RodericDay wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't emphasize this enough. Every time someone rattles out a list of "annoyances" regarding ads, I wish that I could plead with them to consider that there's even bigger reasons. Plenty of people try to sell the idea that ads let us have content "for free", and that all we have to tolerate is "a little annoyance". It's insane. If companies are buying ad-space, it's because they expect to get more business in retur…

It's not insane. I want to buy things, I'm going to continue to buy things, and advertisements sometimes make me aware of things I want to buy. If you think that's insane, I'm confused about why you're participating on a site that's fundamentally about promoting a culture of entrepreneurial spirit and enterprise, which requires making people aware of new products and services.

> sometimes

By your own admission, advertising has a poor signal-to-noise ratio. The mental cost of advertising (not to mention the economic cost) is very high[1]. Why should we stick to a system with such a poor efficiency?

> I want to buy

There are other ways to do that. For example, the internet should make it very cheap to make information available to anybody that wants to buy something. Services like google shopping are very primitive attempts.

> making people aware

It's the "making" part that many of us find extremely unethical. Like everything else, consent is opt-in.

[1] If you don't believe there is a high cost, isolate yourself from ads for a month or two. Humans are very good at adapting, so it's easy become blind to how much energy and mental capacity are necessary to filter ads.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#299

Post by kybernetikos »

krupan wrote: post #203
jordigh wrote: post #70

I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…

I remember Google's unobtrusive text-only ads. Those were often actually helpful to me, letting me know of products or services that I might actually be interested in that I didn't otherwise know about. If all adds were like that plus fast-loading and not invasive of privacy or security, I'd be just fine with them.

"actually helpful" and "not invasive of privacy" are in tension.

Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup

#300

Post by Natsu »

RodericDay wrote: post #236
Natsu wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly disgusting and slimy ads out there, but, to cite a recent example, if I am sent a 10% off coupon and I happen to want to buy a major appliance, am I wrong for choosing that store to buy it at over the others? Did they wrong me by giving out a discount? You can say that they 'manipulated' me into going to their store, but that's only because it was in my own interest to do so in the first place. If…

Since you agree with me that there exist "disgusting and slimy ads out there", and I agree with you that there's some that merely facilitate information, perhaps the more interesting question is "what's the ratio?" I firmly believe that the vast majority of ads out there are unarguably manipulative: feigning time-sensitivity to pressure people into purchasing, availing themselves of psychological tricks with color an…

The ratio is probably at whatever gets the most money from the advertiser, or as close to they know how to be.

So perhaps the real question should be what incentives we can create to tilt that ratio towards useful information and away from slimy things?

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