Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#361

Post by manishsharan » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

What will be the long term consequences of majority of us using AdBlocks? And who will fill the void when running a website is economically unfeasible?

Think of it like this : a majority of well respected publications are behind paywalls ; so people are consuming information from Facebook memes or WhatsApp posts or worse. And we know how well that is going for us as a society?

YouTube ads are freaking annoying. But I know that the creators of those channels I watch depend on those to make a decent living and overwhelming majority of them are not rich.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#362

Post by cercatrova » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

sgjohnson wrote: post #332

zuminator wrote: post #7

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

I have an ethical dilemma about YouTube. I hate ads, I hate Google, and I want to support the creators. For those reasons adblock is a must, and paying for YouTube Premium is not an option (I’m not going to voluntarily give a single penny of my money to Google) Sure, I’ve got CuriosityStream and Nebula subs, but not all content creators use those platforms. It is what it is.

You can pay for their Patreon as well if you want

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#363

Post by visarga » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #126

skummetmaelk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash This cannot be overstated. Everything today is a battle for eye-balls and ad money. The corruption is insane. You can't even buy appliances designed perform their function well. Instead you can buy cheap junk for less than cogs because they make money selling your data to ad companies instead of making money by making products that…

> You can't even buy appliances designed perform their function well You can't research good appliances either online, because the SERPs are stuffed with SEO-ed blogs and sometimes industry magazines, monetized with Amazon affiliates or other networks, with titles like "5 best dishwashers in 2022". Unless you know someone in the industry or offline with knowledge you don't know what to buy. This is noticeable in many…

> This is noticeable in many other consumer goods verticals, e.g. good luck researching decent home gym equipment that is durable and not overpriced with fat margins.

I think Google dropped the ball on their search objectives in this department. Why is it so bad at helping us search products? If I specify something with 2-3 conditionals why can't it match all the clauses, filter out fake reviews, out of stock, not shipped to my region and such?

They don't want to help us find what we want to buy, they want to sell us what the advertisers have to sell, and the two don't match. They want to sell us things we don't need, this is the reason we never buy anything from the ads and their whole industry is a scam.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#364

Post by cercatrova » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

degenerate wrote: post #351

cercatrova wrote: post #186

I have a list of adblockers I use, hope it helps other people here: Desktop: - Pi-Hole (network wide adblocking) - AdGuard (device wide adblocking) Web browsers: - uBlock Origin - uMatrix (not developed anymore but still works, can also use NoScript) - SponsorBlock (blocks in-video sponsor segments, intros, outros, filler tangents, etc in YouTube) Mobile: - Firefox for Android / Kiwi Browser (both have web extension…

YouTube Vanced is miles above NewPipe in features: https://vancedapp.com - If you frequently watch videos on Android and haven't given it a spin yet, do so. SmartTubeNext is excellent on Fire Stick, if you can get the damn APK installed!

Yes but NewPipe is a completely from-scratch implementation and has some unique features like 3x speed or downloading videos and audio. The NewPipe UI is not as good however, so it depends on what tradeoffs you want to make.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#365

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

TheIronMark wrote: post #172

bun_at_work wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is saying they expect free content? I'd pay a monthly fee for unmolested search results. I pay for Youtube Premium. I only watch ad-free content that I pay for. I don't want the content for free - the free stuff is usually worse in quality anyway. I just want to be left alone by advertisers. I don't need what they are selling and the reduce my ability to think. The sheer amount of noise they add to the world make…

> Who is saying they expect free content? Anyone using an adblocker is expecting free content.

I pay for plenty of subscription streaming services “ad free tier”. I buy in app purchases to remove ads. Back when I use to buy Windows PCs, I either bought from the MS store or business laptops to avoid adware.

If I were to ever buy an Android phone (I wouldn’t because Google). It would be a Google device.

I also pay more for an AppleTV than a Roku because half of the Roku screen and the hard coded buttons on the remote are ads.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#366

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

anonymousab wrote: post #120

pea wrote: post #109

An interesting thought experiment is how feasible and expensive would it be to run a large-scale PR and marketing campaign to get that 25% of adblockers to 50%, and how would this disrupt the current hegemony. If you were given the task "Remove $1BN of ad revenue. Here is $100M to spend.", how would you do it? I'd imagine it could be reasonably high leverage.

> and how would this disrupt the current hegemony. You would immediately see many more billions spent on making it illegal wherever it's feasible to do so. And, of course, an accelerated push to 1) neuter the ability for browsers to block content, how they block content, and what content they can block and 2) a push towards big bundles and blobs of content that can't feasibly be adblocked in realtime with the way cur…

With Chrome being about 66% of the browser market, it's a really short trip to get to this future. I sure hope that Apple considers it a strategic imperative to continue developing Safari.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#367

Post by pl0x » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

endominus wrote: post #331

1shooner wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you describe the negative consequence of BAT for a website owner that doesn't want to sell ads?

Website owners no longer have a choice. Brave is incentivized to add ads to otherwise ad-free websites, and apparently does so as Matthew Butterick complains about; https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html

Brave is the wolves in sheeps clothing. I won't be surprised in the future if we learn Brave was using their browser and our data for shady things.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#368

Post by thrower123 » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #56

chrisseaton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really can't believe anyone would user a browser without an ad blocker if they knew how things would look while using one. I don't use an advert blocker but I know what they look like. Why? The adverts don't really bother me and I also think they're dubiously moral.

Do you also read all the spam flyers and emails you get?

At least with the physical spam, I can use it in my woodstove as a firestarter.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#369

Post by ar_lan » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #17

blakesterz wrote: post #2

In FireFox I have my ad blockers disabled in Private Mode so nothing is getting in the way if I'm testing or some site is being weird. Sometimes it's SHOCKINGLY different how a page looks with the blockers in place. I really can't believe anyone would user a browser without an ad blocker if they knew how things would look while using one. The web is a much better place with a blocker in place. (Yes, I know, we get a…

I feel zero guilt about ad blocking. There was some period of discussion on the subject back in like 2003 but the ad companies went to war against human civilization and there's been no going back. It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash and an entire generation has now reached adulthood knowing nothing but that hustle touching every bit of media they ever interact with. W…

> I feel zero guilt about ad blocking.

I don't know why anybody would feel any guilt. When cable was the only thing available, I would switch to my Gameboy when ads would come on and mute the TV, effectively blocking the ads. I'm always curious if people who shame others about ad-blocking similarly think that action was immoral and I should instead be forced to keep my eyes open with superglue when the ads came on.

> People give Brave grief over BAT

Many people are against crypto-currency with no reason other to be contrarian (or they just really, really, really love JP Morgan/Chase). BAT is not even required to be used to use Brave...

I have mixed opinions on where the ad-blocking layer should live (I generally think at the router level), but there are some undeniable benefits to having at least some form at the browser-level as well, and I think Brave making this a default was a fantastic idea.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#370

Post by SkeuomorphicBee » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

TheIronMark wrote: post #102

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't I get paid for my HN posts? Do I owe you for your reply? Do you owe me for this reply? You work out how we commoditize every interaction into tiny micropayments so MBAs are happy with our time allocations and let me know. Ads were tried, and it's been an absolute fucking disaster.

> Why don't I get paid for my HN posts? That's between you and HN and has nothing to do with my consumption of your comment. > Ads were tried, and it's been an absolute fucking disaster. No one likes ads, but expecting free content is silly.

Why, life is full of free content. I sit on a park bench and talk to a friend we are providing free content to each other; when my son plays with our kids in the playground it is free content. When 22 strangers pay ball in the park they are providing free content to each other. Life is full of examples of people providing free contents to people around them, so why the internet should be the exception? This frame of mind that everything needs to be a transaction is rotten.