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Adblocking: How about Nah?

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Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#501

Post by pixelrevision »

_Understated_ wrote: post #200
wybiral wrote: post #67

I don't actually want to block ads. If you want to put a small text or image blurb anywhere on the page... Good for you. I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash. But these companies are intentionally blurring the lines between advertisement and digital surveillance. You don't need to collect everything about my operating system, browser, monitors, GPU, every click I ma…

I have no issue with static, contextual ads (I had this conversation on here the other day in fact). Imagine reading something about, say, a particular lawnmower and the article has a link to that lawnmower at the top as an ad from Flymo with a discount. No tracking just a link to buy it with a tracking Id in the URL or something. Can someone answer me this: Are there studies, not funded by those who benefit from mas…

The online ad industry is super shady and is getting much worse since google and facebook have started eating their lunch. But it would be very hard to pull data collection out of this business model. If company a puts the lawnmower ad up and only reports clicks and company b reports the percentage of men aged 35-40 company b will eventually put company a out of business. Content providers have to run what ads will actually make them money so they’re going to go with networks where companies actually buy ads. The only way this cycle is going to get stopped is with serious pushback either from consumers, technology or laws.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#502

Post by randcraw »

person_of_color wrote: post #356
catotheyoungest wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you asking about blocking ads on a smartphone? Or on a desktop/laptop? The answer depends on your platform, you see.

Both?

On iphone, Perfect Browser. Easily the most configurable and best browser at adblocking.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#503

Post by giobox »

acollins1331 wrote: post #492
giobox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s usually no shortage of public ads for Swiss watches at Zurich airport. There is for sure no ban on advertisements in public places.

Airports are not public places, you literally have to pay for a ticket to get past security.

Sigh. Aside from the fact this comment adds no value to the discussion, anyone can walk into Zurich airport and buy a ticket.

By this logic, many public transport centres such as train stations wouldn't be public spaces either (not unheard of for a train station to have a ticket barrier too). There are adverts in places other than the airport too!

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#504

Post by acollins1331 »

giobox wrote: post #503
acollins1331 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airports are not public places, you literally have to pay for a ticket to get past security.

Sigh. Aside from the fact this comment adds no value to the discussion, anyone can walk into Zurich airport and buy a ticket. By this logic, many public transport centres such as train stations wouldn't be public spaces either (not unheard of for a train station to have a ticket barrier too). There are adverts in places other than the airport too!

This is not true, you can't buy a ticket without identification and you can't get past security unless you go through several other checks. Going into a public area like out on the street is not even similar at all. Airports are not public locations, they are much more similar to the interior walls of a private business than a public location, which doesn't require you to pay to enter and produce varying amounts of identification.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#505

Post by [deleted] »

giobox wrote: post #503
acollins1331 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airports are not public places, you literally have to pay for a ticket to get past security.

Sigh. Aside from the fact this comment adds no value to the discussion, anyone can walk into Zurich airport and buy a ticket. By this logic, many public transport centres such as train stations wouldn't be public spaces either (not unheard of for a train station to have a ticket barrier too). There are adverts in places other than the airport too!

[deleted]

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#506

Post by [deleted] »

wybiral wrote: post #67

I don't actually want to block ads. If you want to put a small text or image blurb anywhere on the page... Good for you. I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash. But these companies are intentionally blurring the lines between advertisement and digital surveillance. You don't need to collect everything about my operating system, browser, monitors, GPU, every click I ma…

[deleted]

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#507

Post by dennisy »

I love reading the views people have about digital advertising on HN, and as someone who works in the space I often agree that they are not providing a great experience and the tracking is too much, but what is the alternative for monetisation of content on the web?

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#508

Post by SXX »

galangalalgol wrote: post #253
zrm wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another possibility would be to create ad blockers that do that, i.e. block third party javascript but not pure text or images. Then you get the same result, simple ads get through but ad scripts don't, so the people who use ads without scripts are the only ones who make money from them.

umatrix does that, but third party is the problem. so many domains put their js on a separate domain. even if they own it.

There also websites that use CDN like CloudFront and sometimes their subdomains are changing quite often.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#509

Post by beefield »

dennisy wrote: post #507

I love reading the views people have about digital advertising on HN, and as someone who works in the space I often agree that they are not providing a great experience and the tracking is too much, but what is the alternative for monetisation of content on the web?

Paid subscriptions. Literally way more than 99% of "free" content is so bad that world would be better without that.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#510

Post by VRay »

zcid wrote: post #82
amelius wrote: post #55

Did anyone ever investigate what benefits ads have to a population? It seems like a net loss to me, because ads are used to make people consume more than they need; ads make people buy the product with the biggest advertising budget instead of the best product; and while ads may make the internet "free", we are still paying for those ads indirectly. Why then, doesn't the government bring advertising to a halt? At lea…

Even disregarding the many questionable aspects of consumerism, think about how many developers you know that have dedicated their entire ability to creating better advertising. The amount of brain power that has been spent on marketing (largely) unnecessary products to consumers is staggering. I hesitate to suppose where we could be if those abilities had been directed elsewhere, but I expect the world might be a mu…

Yeah, a lot of humanity's potential is wasted on advertising, commodities market analysis, and developing javascript frontend code
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