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Ad Nauseam

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Re: Ad Nauseam

#51

Post by anexprogrammer »

eva1984 wrote: post #21
anexprogrammer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the news sites demonstrate how utterly clueless they are with the amount they set their online subscriptions to. £1 a day for The Times - very nearly the cost of the actual paper. $1 daily to access Wired. Don't make me laugh. No one consumes all their news from a single source any more. If my usage pattern is anything near representative, 2-5p a day for the Times and .5p a day for Wired, based on how often I vis…

Hmmm, so you now understand advertising is not a evil business really, right? It is effectively a way to price the information, how much should be paid for your view. Note in print days, you still pay your subscription, yet you get shit loads of ads. And you have a variety choices of publishers. So why this is the worst model ever? The article is laughable that it gives no solution, but asks publishers to evolve into…

> not a evil business really, right

Well I would agree, but ahem popups, popunders, sound, retargeting, tracking, simulated download buttons, simulated anti-virus messages, animations, sound, maximise on rollover, sound (sound there multiple times intentionally :p)

Now then, an industry that resorts to every underhand trick they can think of is not doing much to have my sympathy.

If I could visit a site with ADS, and just ads, without any tracking, retargeting or other trickery I'd gladly have the ads for that site on permanently. By the same token I wouldn't even mind seeing ads on the sites I actually paid for if they were locally hosted and tracking free.

> Note in print days, you still pay your subscription, yet you get shit loads of ads

How many print ads had sound, retargeting, tracking or dropped malware? Comparing apples and oranges here.

Oh no, just to make the internet usable I need to block >50% of the domains a page tries to load. So to turn on ads I need to figure out which of the 20 blocked domains and 10 blocked scripts will let ads through. But tracking and retargeting gets enabled when you do that. Fuck that.

Simple ads, no tracking. It's not hard.

Re: Ad Nauseam

#52

Post by hackerfactor »

SquareWheel wrote: post #41
genedickson wrote: post #20

Stop calling them ad blockers. They block surveillance features that advertisers put in their ads. I do not believe that ads would be blocked by surveillance blockers if they were just ads. Absent the surveillance, how would they recognize them? If ads were identical to the ads in analogue newspapers then surveillance blockers would let them through. When I read an analogue newspaper or magazine nobody is knowing if…

That may be true of the general HN crowd, but I doubt it's true for most people. I block ads because they make the web ugly and slow. It's simply nicer to browse sites without them. In my case at least, "surveillance" doesn't factor into it. If I were to see ads, I'd actually prefer they be targeted to my interests.

Be careful what you ask for...

Right now (and without ad blockers): Go to homedepot.com, search for toilets, and view one toilet product page. This marks your interest. facebook.com will show you ads for toilets for the next month.

Re: Ad Nauseam

#53

Post by eva1984 »

commentzorro wrote: post #48
eva1984 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, so you now understand advertising is not a evil business really, right? It is effectively a way to price the information, how much should be paid for your view. Note in print days, you still pay your subscription, yet you get shit loads of ads. And you have a variety choices of publishers. So why this is the worst model ever? The article is laughable that it gives no solution, but asks publishers to evolve into…

> Some people are so pissed that publisher got anti ad blocker in place .... if you don't read those shitty articles that much, why are you so pissed in the first place? I'm not pissed about the anti ad-block. I'm pissed because the sites show up when I'm searching in the first place. I'm pissed because I go to the site thinking I can get the information I was teased with in my search only to find out I've been trick…

Even paywall article get indexed and showed， I dont think anti ad block justify the cause.

Re: Ad Nauseam

#54

Post by SquareWheel »

hackerfactor wrote: post #52
SquareWheel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true of the general HN crowd, but I doubt it's true for most people. I block ads because they make the web ugly and slow. It's simply nicer to browse sites without them. In my case at least, "surveillance" doesn't factor into it. If I were to see ads, I'd actually prefer they be targeted to my interests.

Be careful what you ask for... Right now (and without ad blockers): Go to homedepot.com, search for toilets, and view one toilet product page. This marks your interest. facebook.com will show you ads for toilets for the next month.

Well, I don't have a Facebook account so I can't test the experiment. But generally if I search for something I don't mind seeing related ads for that thing. Especially if it's something that suits my interests. Google for instance lets you edit your interests list.

Re: Ad Nauseam

#56

Post by manigandham »

CM30 wrote: post #45
manigandham wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isnt any competition from "hobbyists/non-profits". The top publishers on the web all produce a ton of content, none of it can be run without a big business operation which has to earn something, either through advertising or paywalls.

Well, in the gaming scene, most of my news comes from social media sites, fan sites and fan run wikis, which don't tend to be run as businesses. For example, if I want the latest information about Zelda U, I wouldn't go to IGN or Kotaku or Polygon, but instead to Zelda Informer, Dungeon or Wiki depending on what exactly I was looking for. If it was more general information, then that's what the likes of GoNintendo ar…

Sure, but that's not really professionally produced content then. Wiki's and social sites are just users creating content for themselves, which is a fine system, although most wikis (especially the wikia network) is all financed through advertising anyway so it's the same thing.

Paywalled content is going to need to be more than facts, in fact if it's just facts then most news sources are overkill. Rather its the voice and other in-depth journalism that would demand a premium. In this case though there are pretty powerful copyright protection systems in place that it's not really a worry. The same reason why little youtube players complain about stolen videos but not the big studios.

Re: Ad Nauseam

#57

Post by genedickson »

manigandham wrote: post #34
genedickson wrote: post #20

Stop calling them ad blockers. They block surveillance features that advertisers put in their ads. I do not believe that ads would be blocked by surveillance blockers if they were just ads. Absent the surveillance, how would they recognize them? If ads were identical to the ads in analogue newspapers then surveillance blockers would let them through. When I read an analogue newspaper or magazine nobody is knowing if…

Ad blockers dont block ads. They arent even "ad" blockers but just filters - browser extensions that block anything on a page from loading if its coming from a blacklisted domain. Whether it's ads, trackers, social widgets or just an image - it gets blocked by canceling the network request. Surveillance is not the leading cause for adblock, it's because people don't like ads and a 1-click install to remove them is in…

I don't use facebook or google. I use startpage a a google proxy on rare occasions, but mostly search with ixquick. My representatives know what I think about government surveillance and privacy issues, for what its worth. I agree and disagree about online ads always having interactive features. It makes sense, but the controversy around this does make for the possibility that some will go for straight ads. For me surveillance is the main reason I use blockers. History shows that corporations are more of a threat than government. Hitler could never have made it absent the Krupp family. They put him in power. I don't know about Stalin. He did have help along the way, but since he ruled till he died there is a lot less information available, and it is spotty at best. Of course in America the corporations run the government, and it isn't just from campaign contributions, though at this time that is the biggest thing. Europe to. Most of the world's governments are run by corporations behind the scenes. The big possibility to force ads to be non interactive is to seriously call newspapers and magazines that predate the internet on this. I do this pretty regularly. An ad that does not have any interactivity cannot be filtered without removing the article one is reading. That is easy to do. And the incredible amount of publicity waiting for the first newspaper or magazine to require advertisers to eliminate interactive ads should be really tempting. If their publicity department doesn't see this they need to hire me! Given the resources that publicity outfits have I could get the ball rolling and keep it going for long enough that it would be remembered for a while after the boom. The only thing to filter would be the graphics. Alt text would deal with this. If on has use of the advertised item(s), one will check out the pictures. However, I noticed when I "upgraded" my firefox that they don't have the option to block images in the new version, or at least they make it difficult by completely removing the tool bar that held that function. I've looked and looked, but not found. In any event, I utterly lack sympathy for interactive advertisers and the websites that allow them. I'll happily do without them as they go out of business, and I hope they do!

Re: Ad Nauseam

#58

Post by genedickson »

SquareWheel wrote: post #54
hackerfactor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful what you ask for... Right now (and without ad blockers): Go to homedepot.com, search for toilets, and view one toilet product page. This marks your interest. facebook.com will show you ads for toilets for the next month.

Well, I don't have a Facebook account so I can't test the experiment. But generally if I search for something I don't mind seeing related ads for that thing. Especially if it's something that suits my interests. Google for instance lets you edit your interests list.

I don't give a FF, I want to minimize the information strangers have about me. I'd rather see ads that were not targeted. If they know about me that is bad, regardless of all else. Who doesn't matter. Why doesn't matter. I've never had a checking account or credit card. My bank knows nothing of how I spend my money. For mail order I use money orders and aliases. When I contact online sellers I use an alias which I delete shortly after receiving whatever and telling them that it came. I consider surveillance unpatriotic. I may not be able to prevent the NSA from knowing all, but I make purchases anonymously unless I am at a brick and mortar store.

Re: Ad Nauseam

#59

Post by SquareWheel »

genedickson wrote: post #58
SquareWheel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't have a Facebook account so I can't test the experiment. But generally if I search for something I don't mind seeing related ads for that thing. Especially if it's something that suits my interests. Google for instance lets you edit your interests list.

I don't give a FF, I want to minimize the information strangers have about me. I'd rather see ads that were not targeted. If they know about me that is bad, regardless of all else. Who doesn't matter. Why doesn't matter. I've never had a checking account or credit card. My bank knows nothing of how I spend my money. For mail order I use money orders and aliases. When I contact online sellers I use an alias which I de…

Well, that honestly sounds like deep-seated paranoia, but you're free to opt out of tracking with almost all ad networks. Here's Google's:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/authenticated

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/anonymous

Others can be found with a simple Google search.

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