Majority of Americans now use ad blockers • Hacker News Board

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#61

Post by riku_iki » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 8:20 PM UTC

withinboredom wrote: post #60

riku_iki wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advertisers know how to count money, but they are too scared to turn off advertising to find out if they even work. its publishers, not advertisers. Publishers see what share of revenue comes from Ads, and can decide to keep them or not.

Ah, fair distinction. Though also, attribution to ads is bullshit. When we turned off our ad spend at both companies, it became clear that most of new revenue was from direct (organic) sources. We had been advertising to people who were going to buy our products anyway.

You don't need attribution to see this. You could just create some landing page for your Ads, and see impact for users coming to that landing page.

Attribution is very useful for Ads platforms (e.g. Google) to build more efficient targeting models.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#62

Post by aaomidi » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 8:38 PM UTC

ffsm8 wrote: post #40

aaomidi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once a security engineer at Google. So many people really believed ad blocking is like, actual theft. Got into an argument about that with my manager once lol.

> So many people really believed ad blocking is like, actual theft. If copyright infringement is considered theft, then AdBlock would've to be considered akin to theft too. They're inherently the same thing. You're consuming the content without providing the expected revenue to the owner. From my perspective, neither can be considered theft. Which is why I use AdBlock, too. But if either is theft, then the other woul…

Courts disagree with you there.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#63

Post by jqpabc123 » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 9:12 PM UTC

riku_iki wrote: post #55

jqpabc123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching for a product or visiting a web site can trigger "personalized" ads that follow you all over the internet --- even on totally unrelated web sites --- even after you've already made a purchase and no longer have any need for the product. This violates your privacy, wastes your time and communication bandwidth and squanders advertiser's money. In other words, it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are n…

> squanders advertiser's money advertisers know how to count money. If those Ads won't be efficient, you wouldn't see them. If you see them, it means they are efficient and lead to actual user engagements. > it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are now blocking it. Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them, this also applied to "contextual" Ads like on youtube and google search, if company put…

advertisers know how to count money.

Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them

Sorry, does not compute.

If advertisers *really* knew how to count money, they wouldn't be paying to abuse and provoke more and more consumers to block them.

They leave consumers no alternative but to keep blocking until they do figure it out.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#64

Post by riku_iki » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 9:23 PM UTC

jqpabc123 wrote: post #63

riku_iki wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> squanders advertiser's money advertisers know how to count money. If those Ads won't be efficient, you wouldn't see them. If you see them, it means they are efficient and lead to actual user engagements. > it is just plain dumb --- and most consumers are now blocking it. Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them, this also applied to "contextual" Ads like on youtube and google search, if company put…

advertisers know how to count money. Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them Sorry, does not compute. If advertisers *really* knew how to count money, they wouldn't be paying to abuse and provoke more and more consumers to block them. They leave consumers no alternative but to keep blocking until they do figure it out.

Its different cohorts of companies.

Publishers: put excessive ads on their websites.

Advertisers: those who buy ads views from publishers on various platforms/exchanges, they don't have much control over how much ads individual publisher put on his website.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#65

Post by snapplebobapple » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 1:55 AM UTC

jqpabc123 wrote: post #41

dotcoma wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but I predicted we'd get to 50% much faster than we did.

Remember that half the public is of below average intelligence.

Only if the distribution isn't skewed. It might be substantially more than half...

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#66

Post by blitzar » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 6:30 AM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #33

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

The original report: https://www.ghostery.com/blog/privacy-report-advertisers-and... . Curiously, only "76% of experienced cybersecurity professionals and 72% of programmers also reported using an adblocker, compared to just 52% of Americans."

I was once a security engineer at Google. So many people really believed ad blocking is like, actual theft. Got into an argument about that with my manager once lol.

Then google is stealing my time, by showing me ads - I am very happy to bill them at my going hourly rate.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#67

Post by tim333 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 11:44 AM UTC

jqpabc123 wrote: post #7

"Personalized" advertising is just plain dumb --- and it is only a matter of time before advertisers are forced to reach the same obvious conclusion as consumers.

I'm not a fan and block ads but doesn't it make sense to advertise people something they are likely to want?

I've seen it work fairly well on facebook with them popping up holiday suggestions that match fairly well with what users tend to book.

I've also had the awful version where I bought an oven and then for quite a while after all ads were for ovens. Which of course I had no interest in having just bought one. I don't know how long that went on for as I blocked them all.

I wouldn't mind the ad industry recommending me cheap and competent lawyers near me as I'm haveing issues with the expensive incompetent ones but that seems beyond the realms of possibility.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#68

Post by jqpabc123 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 12:14 PM UTC

snapplebobapple wrote: post #65

jqpabc123 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that half the public is of below average intelligence.

Only if the distribution isn't skewed. It might be substantially more than half...

Yes, the technically correct phrase is "below median" --- but a lot of people don't understand the difference so why bother?

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#69

Post by jqpabc123 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 12:18 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #67

jqpabc123 wrote: post #7

"Personalized" advertising is just plain dumb --- and it is only a matter of time before advertisers are forced to reach the same obvious conclusion as consumers.

I'm not a fan and block ads but doesn't it make sense to advertise people something they are likely to want? I've seen it work fairly well on facebook with them popping up holiday suggestions that match fairly well with what users tend to book. I've also had the awful version where I bought an oven and then for quite a while after all ads were for ovens. Which of course I had no interest in having just bought one. I…

doesn't it make sense to advertise people something they are likely to want?

Your oven experience is a perfect example.

Showing you oven ads when you are searching for an oven makes some sense. This is called "context sensitive" advertising.

Showing you oven ads on totally unrelated web sites long after you already bought one is the dumb "personalized" advertising that most people are now blocking.

Re: Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

#70

Post by jqpabc123 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 12:40 PM UTC

riku_iki wrote: post #64

jqpabc123 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

advertisers know how to count money. Consumers are blocking them because companies abused them Sorry, does not compute. If advertisers *really* knew how to count money, they wouldn't be paying to abuse and provoke more and more consumers to block them. They leave consumers no alternative but to keep blocking until they do figure it out.

Its different cohorts of companies. Publishers: put excessive ads on their websites. Advertisers: those who buy ads views from publishers on various platforms/exchanges, they don't have much control over how much ads individual publisher put on his website.

This is all issues for the ad industry to sort out.

More and more consumers will simply block the "dumb" advertising until the industry figures out that the solution is easy and has been available from the start --- it's called "context sensitive" advertising.