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After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

blog.ericgoldman.org

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Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#71

Post by akoboldfrying »

bdangubic wrote: post #62
akoboldfrying wrote: post #60

> I never saw most of the offending ads because of my adblocker Using ad blockers is unethical. No one who uses one (probably 99% of people on HN) wants to hear this, but the conclusion is inescapable really. You may commence your downvoting. ETA: Why do I claim it's unethical? Every ad-supported page is an implicit contract: If you want the good stuff on this page, you need to pay for that by giving some of your att…

You may get downvoted because you are making a bold statement without any reasoning behind it - what exactly is unethical about it? ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unethical )

Thanks, that's fair. I've added my reasons in an ETA on the original post.

Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#72

Post by enad »

I put Adsense on my website in 2004 on a Thursday. Logged in Saturday and discovered that I'd earned $25! I immediately click one of my own ads, then logged back in to check my earnings per click. Later that week I got a warning email from Google. Told my wife.

She made me take all of my Adsense ads down immediately for the rest of the month and the first couple weeks of the next until we received our first Adsense check.

Then, and only then, did she let me put the ads back up. That first check bought us a freezer. The next paid our rent.

Those were fun times: $50 CPM was not usual 2004-2005.

Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#75

Post by bdangubic »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #71
bdangubic wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may get downvoted because you are making a bold statement without any reasoning behind it - what exactly is unethical about it? ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unethical )

Thanks, that's fair. I've added my reasons in an ETA on the original post.

I disagree exactly for the reason BLKNSLVR wrote so I won’t repeat it but upvoted your comment :)

Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#76

Post by georgemcbay »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #36
rhoopr wrote: post #12

There’s an interesting conversation to be had about ad sponsorship on web content when the share of people just getting summarized results from {LLM chatbot of choice} is increasing and siphoning actual views.

The conversation should be about the fact that the advertising won't disappear, it will inevitably move to LLM output where it will be seamless/unblockable and undisclosed. There's a law of conservation (or growth, really) of ad impressions.

> The conversation should be about the fact that the advertising won't disappear, it will inevitably move to LLM output where it will be seamless/unblockable and undisclosed.

And then those of us who ad-block everything now will run local LLMs if only to take the input of the cloud LLM and remove anything that seems like an ad or mentions specific brands.

Though in the long run I think we'll all get along fine with local LLMs in the first place and all the money being dumped into frontier models while useful in pushing the state of the art will effectively have been lit on fire in terms of generating long-term returns.

Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#77

Post by akoboldfrying »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #70
akoboldfrying wrote: post #60

> I never saw most of the offending ads because of my adblocker Using ad blockers is unethical. No one who uses one (probably 99% of people on HN) wants to hear this, but the conclusion is inescapable really. You may commence your downvoting. ETA: Why do I claim it's unethical? Every ad-supported page is an implicit contract: If you want the good stuff on this page, you need to pay for that by giving some of your att…

There are valid reasons for using ad blockers, hence why the general US Intelligence Community both uses and recommends the use of ad blockers "as a critical security measure to defend against "malvertising" and data collection threats". All other arguments are moot in the shadow of this. However, if you're talking about how a media company can stay afloat without advertising, then you're getting very much closer to…

I hear you on malvertising and overzealous data collection. I certainly think online advertising needs to be carefully regulated for essentially safety reasons. But in an ideal world where such regulation was firmly in place, I think it would not be appropriate (because it would not be necessary) for government or influential industry groups to endorse ad-blockers.

BTW I've added an ETA to my original post with my reasons.

Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#78

Post by kstrauser »

fearless1ron wrote: post #69

Why did you think that using an ad network was ever a sensible option for revenue? Ads are cancer and a security risk, so blocking them is just common sense.

Not OP, but because I could flip a switch and get an extra $200/mo for doing nothing extra, at a time when that was important to me.

When every other site on the Internet seemed to have banner ads, the moral quandary was whether I wanted free money or not. That was an easy decision.

Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#79

Post by fooker »

shermantanktop wrote: post #42
sanswork wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been like 10 years since I worked in the space but I'm pretty sure showing adsense on search results like that has been against the tos for a very long time unless you get a specific search feed(which is basically impossible these days and even 15 years ago was limited to companies like ask.com)

Sounds like a footgun waiting to go off? Unless Adsense is pretty explicit about this, beyond some language buried in a TOS.

Footguns as a service

Re: After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)

#80

Post by Suppafly »

donatj wrote: post #21

I have a tool on my website that gets about 250k unique views per day. During COVID I decided to put a single ad on the page to try to make up for my wife's lost income. It was for a time bringing in close to $500 a month, and was a nice little side income. My wife never returned to work, we had kids and she has stayed at home with them. As such the ad has stayed up. Last I checked though it is bringing in something…

adsense isn't the only ad network around, you could probably switch to another one and make a bit more.
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