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The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

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Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#71

Post by teddyh »

yomism wrote: post #69
teddyh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all valid reasons, but they are not the reason I first started to block ads: • They impose a surprisingly huge cognitive load. Even if you (like most people nowadays) are used to them and hence “do not notice them”, that very habit of ignoring them actually takes more brain power than you’d think.

And everybody knows that if you deplete your brain power before going to sleep your brain explodes... On a serious note, your brain will be ok, it is a fine pattern matching machines with adaptative filters to discard uninteresting data (did you notice that sound of blood heartbeating in your ears?... that's filtering doing its work). And also visually our brain is very good at ignoring data, search for the gorilla s…

Straw man. I did not say that using brain power is inherently bad. What I maybe should have said is that I prefer to use all my brain power on reading the article and pondering its implications rather than (unconsciously) wasting much of it on ignoring distracting ads.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#72

Post by DanBC »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #67
DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm very sorry for content-makers who've hitched their financial wagons to ads, I wish things were easier for you, I really do, but I'm not going to view ads, nor am I going to feel bad about. No more so than if you had made the poor choice of relying on spam for financial support. People who hated spam signed the Boulder Pledge. People who hate ads tend to say fuck you, I'm blocking the ads but taking the bandwidt…

You're living in a fantasy world. Nearly everyone universally hates spam, and nearly everyone uses a mail system that automatically filters it. They don't sign a pledge, they just use tools that help then avoid spam. They mark spam they get in their inbox to help others avoid it automatically. And they have no compunction about using a site that relies on spam, they merely find it annoying. And as I mentioned there's…

But people the people who created those early spam filters - they all signed the Boulder Pledge. They all agreed that not only would they block spam, but they would also never ever buy a product promoted with spam.

> Nor is there a moral obligation to do so.

Don't pretend that you have unique moral authority, able to decide the rights and wrongs. If you don't want ads you should boycott ad supported sites - not giving them your traffic is at least as effective as giving them your traffic but hiding their ads. They respond to you by having advertisers paying for content. They respond to me by improving the quality of the content and charging for it.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#73

Post by enimodas »

yomism wrote: post #69
teddyh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all valid reasons, but they are not the reason I first started to block ads: • They impose a surprisingly huge cognitive load. Even if you (like most people nowadays) are used to them and hence “do not notice them”, that very habit of ignoring them actually takes more brain power than you’d think.

And everybody knows that if you deplete your brain power before going to sleep your brain explodes... On a serious note, your brain will be ok, it is a fine pattern matching machines with adaptative filters to discard uninteresting data (did you notice that sound of blood heartbeating in your ears?... that's filtering doing its work). And also visually our brain is very good at ignoring data, search for the gorilla s…

It doesn't explode, but it does get tired. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tough-choices-how-...

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#74

Post by teddyh »

microtonal wrote: post #50
jensen123 wrote: post #42

I think we really, really need cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Buying access to stuff online with a credit card is totally inconvenient, and even worse, you have no privacy then. I guess this is part of the reason why sites financed by advertising have become so prevalent. Personally, if there was an easy and private way to do so, I'd much rather pay for content than getting "free" stuff financed by ads. Inevitabl…

I think we really, really need cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Or just something where I could pay, say 10 Euro per year, and every website that participates gets a fraction to my number of visits or reading time. As far as I understand, Google is trying to do this. But it does not provide a 'no ads' guarantee and there are other ad networks with even more obnoxious ads.

You mean something like Flattr?

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#75

Post by teddyh »

tsujamin wrote: post #28
jarradhope wrote: post #23

or you know, change your business model to suit your market.

what would that business model be if their primary goal is to write interesting tech articles? Is producing this sort of content sustainable at all?

Ask LWN, they seem to be doing fine.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#76

Post by DanielBMarkham »

junto wrote: post #11
cm2187 wrote: post #7

I am amazed that their response to adblockers is more targetted ads. My main reason for using an adblocker isn't to block ads, which don't bother me that much. It is to block tracking accross websites. Telling me that they will do more tracking in response isn't really going to change my mind...

Sites need to consider going back to the pre-Double-Click world, where they self hosted and self managed ads. I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads, I just can't accept the intrusive tracking, including being retargeted.

Yes. If you're going to be responsible for your content, be responsible for your content. Don't write up great evergreen long-form content and then auction off key areas of your page to anybody with a credit-card and ad-network approval. Instead, curate products and services I might be interested in. Vouch for those the same way you vouch for the content. If you want to track everywhere I go, say so. (I doubt I'll patronize your site, but at least you'd be honest about it.)

The problem isn't that all advertising is bad. The problem is that we visit websites expecting one entity to own and operate it. Instead we get hit by a thousand entities, each with its own privacy policies and agendas. That's unworkable from the consumer side.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#77

Post by ac29 »

microtonal wrote: post #50
jensen123 wrote: post #42

I think we really, really need cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Buying access to stuff online with a credit card is totally inconvenient, and even worse, you have no privacy then. I guess this is part of the reason why sites financed by advertising have become so prevalent. Personally, if there was an easy and private way to do so, I'd much rather pay for content than getting "free" stuff financed by ads. Inevitabl…

I think we really, really need cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Or just something where I could pay, say 10 Euro per year, and every website that participates gets a fraction to my number of visits or reading time. As far as I understand, Google is trying to do this. But it does not provide a 'no ads' guarantee and there are other ad networks with even more obnoxious ads.

> Or just something where I could pay, say 10 Euro per year, and every website that participates gets a fraction to my number of visits or reading time.

The problem with this is you must allow a third party to track every page visit and/or page view time, which is unacceptable to many people that use ad blockers.

If you are OK with persistent, pervasive tracking, I think this is probably the best solution.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#78

Post by chris_wot »

DanBC wrote: post #72
InclinedPlane wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're living in a fantasy world. Nearly everyone universally hates spam, and nearly everyone uses a mail system that automatically filters it. They don't sign a pledge, they just use tools that help then avoid spam. They mark spam they get in their inbox to help others avoid it automatically. And they have no compunction about using a site that relies on spam, they merely find it annoying. And as I mentioned there's…

But people the people who created those early spam filters - they all signed the Boulder Pledge. They all agreed that not only would they block spam, but they would also never ever buy a product promoted with spam. > Nor is there a moral obligation to do so. Don't pretend that you have unique moral authority, able to decide the rights and wrongs. If you don't want ads you should boycott ad supported sites - not givin…

Are we talking about spam or ads served over the web? If the latter - they are taking up my bandwidth!

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#79

Post by chris_wot »

hcon wrote: post #57
SixSigma wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much in $ terms is that worth to you? Work it out and send guru3d a payment

Obviously nobody does that. My favorite example is when you see a popular github repository with a donate button (Flattr, Bitcoin address, etc) only to realize they've made a whole $14 in the past year. Wow, thanks world! It turns out that ads worked because the user didn't actually have to do anything. They didn't have to get their credit card out of their wallet, something they rarely do on the internet. And when t…

Yeah, ads work because users don't do anything. That includes actually clicking on the ads themselves.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#80

Post by JupiterMoon »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #62
hannob wrote: post #22

This is so common for the many anti-adblock texts you see these days - they all avoid to talk about the major issues here. (I say that with the background that a significant part of my income comes from ad-financed news pages.) That is: * Security risk through ads (malvertising, ad networks not supporting https etc.). * Ads killing performance (70% CPU for a flash ad is not uncommon). * Privacy (Ad vendors having mos…

This strikes me as pretty similar to the usual "record labels are evil" defense for pirating music, in that it's a rationalization for something people were going to do anyway. While your points are true ones, they're not the reasons most people are using ad blockers (for instance, I am quite confident that most people have no idea about the security risks involved in simply loading an advertisement).

No. The security argument would be more analogous to a hypothetical situation whereby listening to legally purchased CDs occasionally resulted in you house keys or credit card details being distributed to criminals.
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