Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#51

Post by ariwilson » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 6:40 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #42

mojuba wrote: post #2

As a possibility, a model whereby advertisers pay both content providers and readers for viewing ads. I can imagine a system where before viewing expensive content (your next ultradeep NYT analysis I really want to read) I'm given a choice to view an ad (video, audio or picture) on one of the topics I'm interested in and be paid say $0.001. There are ad processors, let's say 2 or 3 major ones A, B and C, with whom I…

Ad networks use real-time bidding to auction banner ad space as the page loads. (I imagine that's part of the reason it can take so damn long for some news sites to load.) Why can't the user (or their user agent) take part in this same auction? If I'm will to pay $0.02 per page view on nytimes.com, but advertisers are only willing to pay $0.01 then I should be able to win the auction.

So, exactly this:

https://contributor.google.com/u/0/

You even have control over who gets your money:

http://i.imgur.com/4Vuuefm.png

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#52

Post by z3t4 » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 6:41 AM UTC

The advertising market have been inflating for ten years now. Ten years ago one user would earn you an average of one usd per month, while you only get around 1 cent per user now. The same goes for advertisers, if your ad gets shown for ten thousand people, you can expect one lead. While ten years ago that would have been a hundred leads.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#53

Post by declan » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 6:50 AM UTC

greggman wrote: post #50

Jerry2 wrote: post #14

About a year or so ago, my dad called me out of the blue and told me that my mom was crying because "internet ads were following her and making her anxious". Earlier that day, she came from a doctor and ended up searching for a medical condition on a famous search website. After that, she started seeing ads for various bullshit remedies all across the internet. Almost every website she visited, showed her same types…

Ever click the little X or > in the corner of an add? Google has a bunch of settings you can set. As for creepy ads following you around though I haven't personally found that to be a google thing.

Google expressly does not do that kind of retargeting. Its policies prohibit retargeting based on "health or medical information": https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/143465?hl=en

I know that the previous post didn't mention Google, but people might leap to the wrong conclusion. I don't know what Yahoo and Microsoft's policies are.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#54

Post by pinaceae » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 6:50 AM UTC

mtgentry wrote: post #18

Why don't more publishers try to detect the ad blockers with stuff like this? https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock And then they could throw up a page that says "Sorry, AdBlock must be disabled to view this content"

because then readership will go down, with less chances of link sharing, positive word of mouth.

see your readers as hostile and well, you get what you deserve.

daringfireball, kottke, reddit - all fine with ads. other sites are completely unusable, especially on mobile. good riddance.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#55

Post by tomlor » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 6:52 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #42

mojuba wrote: post #2

As a possibility, a model whereby advertisers pay both content providers and readers for viewing ads. I can imagine a system where before viewing expensive content (your next ultradeep NYT analysis I really want to read) I'm given a choice to view an ad (video, audio or picture) on one of the topics I'm interested in and be paid say $0.001. There are ad processors, let's say 2 or 3 major ones A, B and C, with whom I…

Ad networks use real-time bidding to auction banner ad space as the page loads. (I imagine that's part of the reason it can take so damn long for some news sites to load.) Why can't the user (or their user agent) take part in this same auction? If I'm will to pay $0.02 per page view on nytimes.com, but advertisers are only willing to pay $0.01 then I should be able to win the auction.

That's a slick idea and one you could actually execute with some amount of success today. The basic idea would be that you could sign up for an advertiser account on a DSP (Demand Side Platform), create a retargeting audience, cookie your own web browser cache to place yourself in your retargeting audience, and then buy ads against that audience - ie yourself.

That would be essentially the same thing this guy did to his roommate: http://mysocialsherpa.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-...

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#56

Post by ipsin » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 6:59 AM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #20

Jerry2 wrote: post #14

About a year or so ago, my dad called me out of the blue and told me that my mom was crying because "internet ads were following her and making her anxious". Earlier that day, she came from a doctor and ended up searching for a medical condition on a famous search website. After that, she started seeing ads for various bullshit remedies all across the internet. Almost every website she visited, showed her same types…

I'm sorry but how do you know it was the search website that sold information? It could as well be the first web site that she opened that happened to be on the same ad network as other related web sites she visited. Just guessing.

I agree with your point, but to the user it can feel like a violation of privacy, and at that point it's not particularly important who's doing it.

Whether it's the faceless search engine or the faceless retargeting company, the net result is that something you thought was personal and private feels less so.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#57

Post by brianclements » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 7:06 AM UTC

What bothers me the most about all these fertile sources for spam and ads to thrive (junk snail mail, telephone marketers, email spam, internet ads) is not just the malicious intent of most of it, but also the inefficiency of it all. A majority of Internet traffic is bots[1] costing electricity and time sorting through spam. Most of my snail mail by weight and size is trash every single day, waisting effort of an already underfunded and non-profitable USPS. Internet ads clutter up web interfaces and take up cycles in our browsers wasting time and making the delivery of information much less efficient. I feel as though in time, with all the physical and digital public services we have, 60% of infrastructure resources will go toward wasteful and nefarious services, 30% will go toward blocking and mitigating said services, and the remaining 10% will be human activity wondering why everything is so damn slow and expensive.

[1]http://theweek.com/articles/454320/62-percent-all-web-traffi...

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#58

Post by eru » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 7:09 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #36

mtgentry wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, so as long as the code can be looked at, it can be circumvented?

No. So long the code is executing on an uncontrolled device, then you cannot guarantee it'll execute how you intended. So if you make a device, like an iPad, seal it to prevent hardware tampering, and ensure no user-triggerable bugs exist, you're all set. There's also remote attestation, like Intel SGX might start to bring. But on existing general-compute devices like PCs, it's a hopeless battle.

And even on a sealed iPad, a user could just use a piece of cardboard to cover the portion of the screen showing the ad.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#59

Post by buffoon » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 7:32 AM UTC

jgianakopoulos wrote: post #46

buffoon wrote: post #37

I love the mantra of "the web is supported by advertising" that every one of these sorts of articles at least quotes. It's not. Shitty business models are supported by advertising. There are plenty of us who provide non-advertising driven services that are profitable and can afford transit costs. As for blocking, the technology allows it so I will use it. If it doesn't allow it, I have no ethical qualms about breakin…

The mantra? This is how the majority of the web is monetized. It's not a mantra, it's a fact. People contribute content to the web and you pay with viewing ads. I don't know how you can rationalize that as being a "shitty" business model just because you purchase a device that is capable of connecting to the internet. If what you really mean to say is that it's a bad business model because people like yourself can in…

Thats really not how it works. Content providers like that ideal but it's incorrect. It never has operated that way.

I pay for a connection and a device. I don't pay for an advertising subsidy. If you choose to use advertising as a capital model for your business in a market so easily destroyed by technology then that by definition is a shitty business model due to the massive risk of a technological shift destroying your only income. Not only that, the consumers merely tolerate your model, not engage it. It is a plague upon them most of the time.

The only way this model works is if you provide a device which consumes advertising. That in itself is being eroded as well due to the number of services which offer utility without advertising even on the advertiser's territory.

Content isn't worth much on its own which is the problem. Authors rarely get paid anything significant from publishing; same with content driven advertising. I don't see how you're going to milk it in a decaying market.

The web will shrink, content will have to stand alone and be free of advertising ties and you'll have to put some cash down for services. Back to 1995 again.

I fully expect these dying markets to throw a few turds yet however. That will merely bury them deeper.

Re: Welcome to the Block Party: The internet after ad blocking

#60

Post by hueving » Tue, Sep 15, 2015, 7:36 AM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #20

Jerry2 wrote: post #14

About a year or so ago, my dad called me out of the blue and told me that my mom was crying because "internet ads were following her and making her anxious". Earlier that day, she came from a doctor and ended up searching for a medical condition on a famous search website. After that, she started seeing ads for various bullshit remedies all across the internet. Almost every website she visited, showed her same types…

I'm sorry but how do you know it was the search website that sold information? It could as well be the first web site that she opened that happened to be on the same ad network as other related web sites she visited. Just guessing.

Said search website was probably google. If that's the case they don't have to sell it, they just use it to target ads from their own network. If you search something on Google it will follow you like the plague.