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How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

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Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#361

Post by irq-1 »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #302
ljoshua wrote: post #238

As has been mentioned elsewhere, my exact problem with this/Forbes approach/elsewhere is that there is no way that I want to suddenly start managing several new monthly subscriptions for all these outlets. I enjoy Wired, but the thought of adding yet another subscription to my monthly credit card statement is too great a cognitive load for me to want to make the jump. Also, if you were to subscribe to the dead tree v…

This is exactly what Readability [1] was doing, really well - from a user's perspective - but they couldn't make the business model work. They got lots of paying readers on-board, but couldn't get publishers involved. Maybe they were just s few years too early. As you say, now that publishers are slowly awakening from their slumber, they'll be more willing to give it a go. [1] https://www.readability.com/

The publishers can't give up control of pricing. If a third-party gatekeeper gains enough traction they'll control pricing, by making the market, and be able to sway the consumers choices. (Think iTunes with music or Amazon with book publishers.)

If publishers work with any micro-payment system they'll be competing on a penny-per-article basis, and not be able to pressure users into paying $4/mo for what's mostly an unwanted product.

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#362

Post by rsync »

isomorphic wrote: post #4

> So, in the coming weeks, we will restrict access to articles on WIRED.com if you are using an ad blocker. Good luck with that, Wired. The people-who-will-never-pay group will split into two: People who never visit your site again, and people who up the ante in the ad-blocking escalation. While you may think that you don't care about the people-who-will-never-pay group, the latter subgroup will release their improve…

"Good luck with that, Wired."

I can only see this as an act of desperation. They can't possibly think people are going to sign up for $1/mo subscriptions ... they must know that will happen fewer than 1000 times ever.

The other half - restricting their content from the exact audience that they supposedly represent ...

I feel sorry for them - they must be completely backed in a corner with no good options.

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#363

Post by tristor »

hsod wrote: post #358
tristor wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why protocols (such as HTTP) intended for use in the public space refer to a client connection as a "request". I am asking them for a specific set of data, they are welcome to choose whether to provide it or not. Once I've received it, and it's on my computer, I get to choose whether or not to let it run. In the case of advertisements, I have more security concerns than mere annoyance, so I choose to…

I wasn't saying that you're obligated to look at ads. I said that if you want to use someone else's servers AND want to block ads, you're going to end up in a technical war. You said "there is no war", but obviously there is. Your choices are: * use the servers and look at ads * don't use the servers at all * use the servers and try to block ads In this third option (which seems to be the one you chose), the people w…

I guess we're talking past each other. You're of the impression that I'm going to try to circumvent them refusing to serve me content while I'm blocking ads. I'm not. I have no reason to. They have every right to refuse to let me view their content for any reason they choose, and I have every right to not run arbitrary scripts they serve me on my computer.

There is no war, because I'm not going to fight. I'm going to viciously restrict what runs on my system to protect my own security and privacy. If that makes some services or sites become unavailable to me, so be it.

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#364

Post by rsync »

vinceguidry wrote: post #80

Oh well, there goes another outlet. They can all do this, I don't care. Just won't read their content. Eventually there won't be any good non-paywalled content left, and I'll just figure something else out. They want my money, they're going to have to either pay off the mob (Adblock Plus) or get together with all the other news outlets and give me a one stop shop option. No way am I going to manage dozens of $1 a wee…

"Oh well, there goes another outlet. They can all do this, I don't care. Just won't read their content. Eventually there won't be any good non-paywalled content left, and I'll just figure something else out."

It reeks of desperation on their part - no good options left for their business or their business model.

That being said, while I will not miss wired.com at all, I will miss a site like arstechnica and would hate to think they are in the same boat ...

Presumably, given the even higher level of technical acumen among their readers, ars might be in an even worse situation.

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#365

Post by bbradley406 »

fiatmoney wrote: post #16
VeilEm wrote: post #5

How are they going to detect ad blocking? They're going to have to spend a long time fighting anti-ad block detection. You can't trust the client. Ads are displayed in the client. It would take hardware level ad serving to make ad serving and anti-ad blocking feasible.

Trivial answer: the webpage is a monolithic PNG. Good luck building a general-purpose image parser & modifier, especially on a webpage with embedded animations. There are ways to make it very difficult to distinguish between content and ads, that's all you need to do. At the highest level, the content is the ads, which is usually what ends up happening to trade publications anyway.

As everyone else has said, I would prefer that (if I were browsing with no filtering).

Here's the trivial client blocking method: OCR and break the result into different groups by page location, font size and color; the article will be the largest groups of text with the same font. Large images and charts that were part of the original article would be cropped out and re-inserted into the final document. Within a few days you would see a browser extension made with adaptable filtering for most sites that used the monolithic PNG.

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#366

Post by DamnInteresting »

ljoshua wrote: post #238

As has been mentioned elsewhere, my exact problem with this/Forbes approach/elsewhere is that there is no way that I want to suddenly start managing several new monthly subscriptions for all these outlets. I enjoy Wired, but the thought of adding yet another subscription to my monthly credit card statement is too great a cognitive load for me to want to make the jump. Also, if you were to subscribe to the dead tree v…

I am a programmer, an advertising hater, and a donor-supported content creator. A couple years ago I had an idea for a product that I feel would address this problem extremely well, filling the gaps that Patreon and Flattr seem to be neglecting.

I've started on it, and it's coming along, but sadly my schedule doesn't have room for another ongoing project, and I can't afford to pay another programmer to build it for me, so progress comes in fits and starts. Maybe once I have a demo-worthy prototype I can seek funding and hire help.

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#367

Post by cyphar »

DannyBee wrote: post #341
cyphar wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, clearly, you instead just directly pay the authors/etc when you can, right? Yes, if the content is good enough to warrant paying for a subscription. > Or does that all conveniently fall by the wayside in your crusade? Nope, and there's no reason to muddy the waters with terms like crusade.

"Yes, if the content is good enough to warrant paying for a subscription. " So if it's not, you just view it anyway? "Nope, and there's no reason to muddy the waters with terms like crusade. " It's pretty rich to make a moral argument the way the parent did and have a problem with a term like crusade, which is a precise and correct term to describe this.

> > "Yes, if the content is good enough to warrant paying for a subscription. " > So if it's not, you just view it anyway?

Yes, because I decide what authors and publications I choose to support based on what they publish. You might think I'm "taking free samples too far", but you can always flick through a magazine before buying it in a store -- what is the difference here? Paying for a publication when you have no idea what they produce is just being a bad consumer.

> > "Nope, and there's no reason to muddy the waters with terms like crusade. "

> It's pretty rich to make a moral argument the way the parent did and have a problem with a term like crusade, which is a precise and correct term to describe this.

Well, to be fair GP made a similar moral argument, so I guess they also have a crusade?

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#368

Post by a3n »

a3n wrote: post #326

Good. I've been waiting for sites to stop whining, grow a pair and refuse me and my fellow blockers. I can get along without them, the quality of my life won't suffer a single decimal place, and they'll gain ... well, I don't know what they'll gain other than "winning," but whatever. But I guess one thing to consider is, even if I block, people who I send links to may or may not block. There's some math that probably…

Wouldn't it be ironic if blockers were the most valuable viewers, because of the number of people who follow our recommendations for articles and sites?

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#369

Post by tn13 »

All these publications must for a consortium of sort where I can login into one website and manage all my subscription and then never ever see any advertisements.

I don't want to pay wired and forbes and WaPo and NYT and keep track of all these payments appearing on my credit card. We need a Netflix for web publishers.

Re: How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

#370

Post by MisterBastahrd »

ljoshua wrote: post #238

As has been mentioned elsewhere, my exact problem with this/Forbes approach/elsewhere is that there is no way that I want to suddenly start managing several new monthly subscriptions for all these outlets. I enjoy Wired, but the thought of adding yet another subscription to my monthly credit card statement is too great a cognitive load for me to want to make the jump. Also, if you were to subscribe to the dead tree v…

Publishers will never buy into that. Ever. The ones who are large enough to throw up paywalls will do so. The smaller ones don't have enough margin to let a third party dictate whether they get paid.
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