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Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#41

Post by stevenh »

johnward wrote: post #26
freehunter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "stop downloading F2P games" or "don't support the RIAA/MPAA". There are really just so few sites that aren't ad supported. "It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved." It's literally none of those things. It's not simple, it's not a solution, and it doesn't work for anyone involved.

Leaching content is not much different than the early days of MP3s. So I'm hopeful we'll find a new business model that works without me having to pay for every site on the web I want to browse. I can't remember the last time I pirated an album. The ease of streaming services has made it so convenient that I don't want to manage local files. Still I don't buy the argument that just because you don't want to pay for t…

All ISPs should be required to convert to nonprofit organizations, and the portion of a user's monthly bill that used to be profit for the ISP needs to instead be evenly distributed in a fair way to the owners of all sites visited by the user.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#43

Post by calbear81 »

infogulch wrote: post #35
dmritard96 wrote: post #30

Counting Impressions. A different model is needed if the publishers servers have to get the ad first and then give it to the client because the ad server then needs to trust the publisher to report impressions honestly and the publisher has an incentive to inflate that number.

A: Drops 'impressions' as the metric for allocating money for ads. Use something else like clicks which take you to the advertiser's site.

You're assuming the point of all display ads is to make you click. Many advertisers don't care whether you click or not, they just want to make sure you saw the ad/message. Many brands don't require online engagement, they want to reinforce what their brands means.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#44

Post by [deleted] »

dmritard96 wrote: post #30

Counting Impressions. A different model is needed if the publishers servers have to get the ad first and then give it to the client because the ad server then needs to trust the publisher to report impressions honestly and the publisher has an incentive to inflate that number.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#45

Post by donavanm »

Are you starting from a false assumption? Delegation seems like the logical answer. Content publishers already delegate out a DNS label/domain for CDNs. Why wouldn't they also delegate a DNS label/domain to a third party for ad infrastructure?

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#46

Post by chinathrow »

r1ch wrote: post #42

Tried this once. Ad block maintainers went out of their way to create custom filters for our site.

I think the only thing you can do these days is to rotate ad directories _and_ file names constantly, i.e. multiple times each hour just to run around ad blockers and their maintainers.

Or did you go already that far?

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#47

Post by mgalka »

austenallred wrote: post #31

Generally ads pay up to an order of magnitude more if there is some level of tracking and targeting available, and that's what most ad blockers target. Paying a bunch of money to show ads to who-knows-who who-knows-how-many-times isn't very valuable. Paying money to show ads to owners of Shitzus that make over $100,000/year is worth $12/click. I'm pretty certain that as ad blockers grow there will be a lot more work-…

Is there that much of a difference? Publishers should have a pretty good breakdown of their visitors demographic distribution.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#48

Post by johnward »

baddox wrote: post #40
johnward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop browsing ad supported content then. It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved. Everyone says "i'd happily pay" but few put their money where their mouth is. For the HN downvoters why is choosing not to consume the ad supported content so bad?

How does choosing to not consume ad-supported content help the situation? There is no difference between not viewing an ad-supported web page, and viewing it with an adblocker, apart from the extremely small cost of serving the page. And if the cost of serving the page to adblocking visitors is too high, then that's an extremely obvious flaw in the web site's business model, and is in no way the fault of the adblocki…

Hosting is basically a commodity now but there is still cost involved. Especially if you are actually producing unique content. If I choose to steal a physical product is that an "obvious flaw in the business model" too?

Look, I'm not arguing that advertising is the only way to make money. In fact I think it's ultimately going to die or come to some form users and content producers can agree on. Especially with companies like Apple, and Google (who ironically makes a ton of money on ads) turning against ads. There are certain types of advertising that users do accept right now. Mostly things like "content marketing". Where a user reads some blog post or helpful tip which is really just a way to promote another service or product that the user pays for. Those even do well on HN. Then again HN is basically an advertisement in itself for Y Combinator startup news.

I do think the ability to make money helped the web grow and continue to grow. Advertising is and was a large part of that.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#49

Post by johnward »

stevenh wrote: post #41
johnward wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaching content is not much different than the early days of MP3s. So I'm hopeful we'll find a new business model that works without me having to pay for every site on the web I want to browse. I can't remember the last time I pirated an album. The ease of streaming services has made it so convenient that I don't want to manage local files. Still I don't buy the argument that just because you don't want to pay for t…

All ISPs should be required to convert to nonprofit organizations, and the portion of a user's monthly bill that used to be profit for the ISP needs to instead be evenly distributed in a fair way to the owners of all sites visited by the user.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#50

Post by johnward »

joosters wrote: post #29
johnward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop browsing ad supported content then. It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved. Everyone says "i'd happily pay" but few put their money where their mouth is. For the HN downvoters why is choosing not to consume the ad supported content so bad?

Could you give some examples of websites where there is some form of ToS that contractually disallows access without viewing the ads? I think you'll find that the overwhelming majority of websites have no such terms of use, so who are you to tell us how we should be accessing these sites?

Is updating the ToS going to actually change anything?
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