What the ad blocker debate reveals • Hacker News Board

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#31

Post by danr4 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:18 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #4

danr4 wrote: post #2

It's rather simple in my mind. Putting your content up for free is the same as standing by my fence, waiting for me to ask you to throw your magazine over so I could read it. You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience. Don't want me to cut out the ads? tough luck, my reading experience, my choice. Want to make money? try a subscription model. Why can't you have both? Welcome to…

"Simple" doesn't mean correct. In practice cutting out ads probably makes you a more valuable customer because you've spent 10x the time most people spend looking at ads inspecting them while cutting. (and don't give any BS about "oh I actively avoid brands that advertise" -- brand advertising works, deal with it) The better analogy is, you cut out the ads, reprint the paper, and redistribute it to other customers. I…

As stated in another comment, cutting them out can be an hypothetical ad cutting machine I 3D printed.

The implementation detail of how i'm cutting out the ads is beside the point. The point is that I can offer my ad cutting services for free to anyone.

I can tell all my friends - "Hey guys i'll come to your house and cut the ads out of the free magazines you're already receiving"

Which is definitely not the same as "Hey guys I've received this magazine, and I cut the ads, here's the PDF"

The reprint and redistribution parts are non-existent in ad blockers. the content is not hosted on adblockersite.com.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#32

Post by toyg » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:19 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #18

danr4 wrote: post #2

It's rather simple in my mind. Putting your content up for free is the same as standing by my fence, waiting for me to ask you to throw your magazine over so I could read it. You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience. Don't want me to cut out the ads? tough luck, my reading experience, my choice. Want to make money? try a subscription model. Why can't you have both? Welcome to…

> Putting your content up for free is the same as throwing your magazine over my fence for free. You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience. Uh ? To cut the ads out you need to see them. Adblock hide them as if they never existed in the first place. Analogies, these days...

you could hand the magazine to a 3-year old who can't read, and he'll cut out all pictures for you.

Nitpickers, these days...

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#33

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:21 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #23

moron4hire wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does Reddit manage to have ad-less subscriptions and yet still restrain themselves from creating obtrusive interstitial ads? Superhuman strength? Immortality? Some other heretofore unknown super power? The truth is, there is nothing on the NY Times or WaPo that is worth paying twice for.

Reddit has its users create all the content for free. And AFAIK they still aren't profitable.

You'd hope that the content produced by newspapers would rise above the level of reddit leading to people wanting to pay for the content directly.

Of course if people are looking for entertainment then that's a different story and reddit may be serious competition.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#34

Post by moron4hire » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:22 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #23

moron4hire wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does Reddit manage to have ad-less subscriptions and yet still restrain themselves from creating obtrusive interstitial ads? Superhuman strength? Immortality? Some other heretofore unknown super power? The truth is, there is nothing on the NY Times or WaPo that is worth paying twice for.

Reddit has its users create all the content for free. And AFAIK they still aren't profitable.

Alright, fine, then how does HBO do it?

If I want to have the NY Times, it's $32/mo [0], plus I have to let them ride my shoulder as I go about the rest of my business online. HBO Now is $15/mo [1], the only ads I get are in between episodes and only for other shows on HBO.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp3004.htm... they charge different rates for different screen sizes, which I find highly objectionable. If I want it on all of my devices, it's $8/wk

[1] https://order.hbonow.com/ Oh, look, an https site. NY Times redirects from https to http.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#35

Post by toyg » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:22 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #30

I want the advertising industry to die. And I honestly don't care what it takes down with it. If it hurts, we'll find ways around it, Patreon being a good example.

Publicity is the lifeblood of commerce. As long as one seller exists, one or more advertisers will also exist to help him sell more. Sad but true.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#36

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #13

CSMastermind wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers have successfully used a combination of subscription and advertising for a century now.

Maybe not the best example: http://i.imgur.com/0mgT0AR.jpg

Not how up to the .com bust the newspapers were actually making more money than before. The collapse of the market took a heavy toll, both on newly minted online media as well as on established media that had made the jump to online.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#37

Post by moron4hire » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #25

rbinv wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although true, wouldn't an efficient advertiser try not to pay for ads that target those "cheap people" anyway? Seems like they would be a waste of ad budget in any case.

Yes, exactly: most advertisers would want to reach the sort of paying subscribers who no longer see ads. By removing all ad impressions from that segment of the audience, you disproportionately decrease ad revenue. (Also, digital advertising is still very far from efficient)

Why should we bend over backwards for advertisers but not paying customers?

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#38

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #29

danr4 wrote: post #2

It's rather simple in my mind. Putting your content up for free is the same as standing by my fence, waiting for me to ask you to throw your magazine over so I could read it. You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience. Don't want me to cut out the ads? tough luck, my reading experience, my choice. Want to make money? try a subscription model. Why can't you have both? Welcome to…

I think it's simple too, but doesn't need a meatspace analogy like that. I request some data, you send me some data. My computing device (yes MY computing device) then renders it in accordance with my wishes. That's it. (oh, and no, I have no obligation to play ball with your trackers)

That's why in the War on General Purpose Computing, publishers and advertisers are on the side of making the computing device not yours.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#39

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #37

eli wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly: most advertisers would want to reach the sort of paying subscribers who no longer see ads. By removing all ad impressions from that segment of the audience, you disproportionately decrease ad revenue. (Also, digital advertising is still very far from efficient)

Why should we bend over backwards for advertisers but not paying customers?

Most likely because advertisers pay much more.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#40

Post by hibikir » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

Donzo wrote: post #5

Publishers have done this to themselves with obstrusive intersitals; slow, over-the-content pop-ups; autoplaying video and audio ads; and other extremely annoying and degrading ad implementations. They have destroyed the browsing experience. If publishers were more ethical with their implementations of advertising technologies, fewer people would be driven to use ad-blocking.

It's a Tragedy of the Commons situation: When we block ads, we do it relatively aggressively, so those that implement advertising in an acceptable way get crushed anyway. You are either using ads people don't see, or doing terrible things like many Minecraft mods, often downloaded by kids, and hosted at a particularly nasty site where the obvious download link gives you malware. To block horrible things like that, we also sink anyone trying to use sensible advertisements. Behaving like a good citizen just gives a website less revenue, and gains them pretty much nothing.

At least one ad blocker tried to avoid this by marking some advertisements as legitimate/unobtrusive, and not blocking them. That didn't fly very well, as the rest of us just claimed that they were in league with advertisers, and just using this unblocking as a different source of revenue.

That's why the good actors are moving towards mixing advertisements and other content to be so similar as to be impossible to filter. Sponsored stories, content modified to add a few links to advertisers and such. Pay people not to post advertisements on their page, but to actively talk about you in the same way they talk about other things on their site.