81–90 of 166 posts
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Easy to become anti-ad after they stop paying lol Like me becoming anti-my-girlfriend after she dumped me
Well it's a trade off right? If the benefit outweighs the drawbacks, you say yes, and when the benefits evaporate leaving only the drawbacks, it's a no.
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.
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There's no contradiction; ad blocker usage is common within the industry.
There certainly is a contradiction, but it's so deeply ingrained that using ad blockers is OK that people can't see it even when it's right in front of their faces. If everyone used 100% effective ad blockers, Alphabet (minus GCP) and Meta would not exist, and nor would the very large number of free-as-in-beer services that make up a large part of what makes the internet useful to people.
Whatever replaced them could hardly be worse than the shit we currently have. I refuse to believe we live in a global maximum.
Several years ago, I ran a niche hobbyist website and incorporated Adsense (because why not?!?). The site featured a fuzzy search function since it referenced tens of thousands of named parts. The search result page would echo the (sanitized) search term followed by the matching results - along with recent search terms in the right sidebar. One day, some spambot hit the site and started searching for terms like "meso…
I think there is a super-sophisticated industry where advertisers are gamed out of their advertising dollars, and we occasionally can see it leaking out. For example I was very recently relentlessly hammered by political advertising by some odious tech guy who wants to get nominated for some congressional seat in the Bay Area. This was hard programming, where they just threw out the guy's name before you could hit mu…
https://missionlocal.org/2026/04/saikat-chakrabarti-sf-campa...
I also get bombarded by anti-Saikat ads, most from "Abundant Future", which appears to be a PAC funded by Garry Tan and the Ripple guy. the ads loudly proclaim that AOC tweeted once that one of Saikat's tweets is divisive, and that Saikat is a millionaire. This coming from two guys who control a huge pile of money in San Francisco.
> 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…
* A website serves me a page with a place to put ads on it.
* I reject their offer to serve me ads.
* The site has the option of deciding not to serve me any more content, typically by showing me an anti-ad-blocker popup. If they continue to serve me, they've agreed to my proposed contract alterations.
* If they choose not to serve me, I can decide to accept their final offer (by disabling my ad-blocker) or reject it (by closing the tab).
What on earth makes you think that the negotiation ends with the initial offer? That's not how bargaining works. This isn't some Soviet-style take-it-or-leave-it scenario.
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There's no contradiction; ad blocker usage is common within the industry.
There certainly is a contradiction, but it's so deeply ingrained that using ad blockers is OK that people can't see it even when it's right in front of their faces. If everyone used 100% effective ad blockers, Alphabet (minus GCP) and Meta would not exist, and nor would the very large number of free-as-in-beer services that make up a large part of what makes the internet useful to people.
Sounds incredible. How do we make this paradise happen?
Several years ago, I ran a niche hobbyist website and incorporated Adsense (because why not?!?). The site featured a fuzzy search function since it referenced tens of thousands of named parts. The search result page would echo the (sanitized) search term followed by the matching results - along with recent search terms in the right sidebar. One day, some spambot hit the site and started searching for terms like "meso…
I was dumb enough when I was 11 to sign up for Adsense under my Mom’s name and put it on a php-based meme sharing site I made that my fellow 5th graders used. Anyway, I noticed I could make a couple dollars a week. So I had my friends sit there and spam load the site. Made about 80$ until Google banned me (my mom) for life from Adsense
But I think I need to correct you -- what you and I did wasn't dumb at all. It was quite innovative for our pre-teen brains. This was my first exposure to running a business and setting up a team and thinking like an entrepreneur. Just imagine all the ice cream and Pokémon cards we could have bought if it had worked...
Several years ago, I ran a niche hobbyist website and incorporated Adsense (because why not?!?). The site featured a fuzzy search function since it referenced tens of thousands of named parts. The search result page would echo the (sanitized) search term followed by the matching results - along with recent search terms in the right sidebar. One day, some spambot hit the site and started searching for terms like "meso…
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Slightly off-topic, but several small-to-medium Youtube channels I watch, mentioned that their yearly Youtube earnings are way down, by two-thirds in one case. It may be that Alphabet is dialing back their profit sharing - across the board.
That's to be expected. Google needs that money to fund the AI development that will enable them to replace creators with their own slop, allowing them to pocket 100 % instead of sharing anything at all.