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Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

research.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#41

Post by TeMPOraL »

amelius wrote: post #10

> We conclude that ad blocking has a positive impact on user engagement with the Web, suggesting that any costs of using ad blockers to users’ browsing experience are largely drowned out by the utility that they offer. Facebook: "This user isn't clicking any ads; let's keep them engaged more with pointless content until they do."

Or, "Poor schmucks think they're safe with ad-blockers, but they don't realize our site is 50% native advertising these days".

Still, that doesn't cancel out the benefits of ad blocking.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#42

Post by amelius »

kardos wrote: post #34
Animats wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

micro-payment system This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

You're not wrong, but some users would be happy to buy their way out of the "advertising experience" for a few cents.

What is people's data worth? 50 dollars per year?

I guess most people would be willing to pay that amount in exchange for privacy.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#43

Post by rfugger »

amelius wrote: post #10

> We conclude that ad blocking has a positive impact on user engagement with the Web, suggesting that any costs of using ad blockers to users’ browsing experience are largely drowned out by the utility that they offer. Facebook: "This user isn't clicking any ads; let's keep them engaged more with pointless content until they do."

Facebook: "This user isn't clicking any ads, and will probably never click any ads. That's fine; their presence and contribution to the platform helps us attract and retain other users, some of whom will click ads, and so is inherently valuable to us."

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#44

Post by jacquesm »

Animats wrote: post #32
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

micro-payment system This comes up regularly. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect micropayments. Not from the users who would pay them.

I am not in the micropayment business, nor do I want to be. I do understand that news organizations and various web properties need to make enough money to survive, and would happily support a micropayment system.

But the sad reality is that it will not happen. Not because people like me would not follow through on their pledge, but because advertising is completely entrenched at this point and it most likely would not generate the same amount of revenues.

Keep in mind that newspapers (the old kind) used to charge both sides: a subscription for the users to pay and advertising on the other side. So if some organization would start to charge using a micro-payment system sooner or later ads would be back (or they would not even leave) simply because a large enough audience is worth marketing to, and an audience that is paying for content is worth more, not less.

So I'm afraid that advertising is here to stay.

The problem that I have isn't so much with advertising, it is with all the tracking. I'm fine with ads, and I'm fine with occasionally seeing stuff that I might be interested in. But all the tracking to boost the value of the individual profiles is what irks me. So an opt-out using a micropayment system to have zero tracking would maybe be closer to practical than a complete opt-out of advertising.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#45

Post by jacquesm »

manigandham wrote: post #21
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

This has already been tried and tested for a decade. Blendle is arguably the best version of it today and Google has the Contributor program. I put together a small team to create an adblocker/payment solution a few years ago that used a flat rate with payments proportional to engagement (combination of time and depth) per domain, similar to systems like Spotify (number of plays vs total). It failed because people fu…

Is Blendle making money?

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#46

Post by jchw »

Interesting, but I do want to know if a randomized study produces the same results. Users who use adblockers are much more likely to be power users.

Mozilla does control for that by separating any add-on from adblockers, however. So maybe the finding is generally true. This is not very surprising if true, given the difference in experience across most websites when adblocking is on.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#47

Post by akira2501 »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

> less than 5c for more serious journalism.

I have always hated this idea. It turns the editorial role into a search engine optimization role and I can only see journalism as a whole suffering for it.

I work in broadcast where we still have a sales staff and do manual placement of our advertising in our content. I honestly don't understand what would be wrong with this model.

Larger websites are entirely capable of hiring a sales and traffic departments, selling advertisements to clients directly, and then placing and trafficing those advertisements directly from their own website. In my mind, this would net them a larger share of the profits, completely disable ad-blocking on their site, and relieve editors from having to generate populist content to keep their jobs.

Also, I wouldn't have to attach some new kind of payment account to my web-browser.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#48

Post by 3K7m7bUZyWA1KCD »

amelius wrote: post #42
kardos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but some users would be happy to buy their way out of the "advertising experience" for a few cents.

What is people's data worth? 50 dollars per year? I guess most people would be willing to pay that amount in exchange for privacy.

I doubt even 10% of European citizens would pay even 5$ per year for that as long there are adblockers.

Now, if the content is worth it, that's different story. There have always been subscription based websites (e.g. forums with pay-to-upgrade schemes).

Why webmasters and advertisers haven't yet perfected and adopted server-side ad injections is beyond me.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#49

Post by wildfire »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

Are you intentionally unaware that they have been doing this ( C.f. webpayments API)?

Or is this work going to be a complete surprise to you?

I know https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Features/Web_Payments only mentions 2017 but this stuff has been in play since 2015.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#50

Post by kardos »

3K7m7bUZyWA1KCD wrote: post #48
amelius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is people's data worth? 50 dollars per year? I guess most people would be willing to pay that amount in exchange for privacy.

I doubt even 10% of European citizens would pay even 5$ per year for that as long there are adblockers. Now, if the content is worth it, that's different story. There have always been subscription based websites (e.g. forums with pay-to-upgrade schemes). Why webmasters and advertisers haven't yet perfected and adopted server-side ad injections is beyond me.

> Why webmasters and advertisers haven't yet perfected and adopted server-side ad injections is beyond me.

Because then the advertisers have to trust the webmasters to actually show the ads and not inflate the numbers, etc

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