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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)

#91

Post by rurp »

georgemcbay wrote: post #76
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

This would be great but I'm sure the entrenched players will make it difficult enough to run effective local models that normal users won't touch them.

There are only two OS options for phones and computers for 99+% of people and it will be trivially easy to restrict local models on them.

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

#92

Post by coliveira »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #29
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #5

I do find it interesting that the author specifies they use an ad blocker whilst also wanting to view the industry 'from the inside'. I'm not sure there isn't a level of hypocrisy there, albeit understandable. As staunchly anti-advertising, I wouldn't include advertising on anything I publish personally, but then I also don't publish anything, so I have no pressure to change my stance. I think I've convinced myself t…

Well, I think either way, Internet ads are dead for the most part. They have been dead for many years now. They started exactly the same way and went through the same flow. There were all kinds of ads: ads to install junk, ads that were totally misleading, ads that were very sexual in nature just to tempt users into clicking them, and ads that were totally irrelevant to the topic of the website or the user's interest…

Large news sites still depend on ads. They don't make much, but there's not much else they can do to increase revenue.

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

#93

Post by coliveira »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #11
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #5

I do find it interesting that the author specifies they use an ad blocker whilst also wanting to view the industry 'from the inside'. I'm not sure there isn't a level of hypocrisy there, albeit understandable. As staunchly anti-advertising, I wouldn't include advertising on anything I publish personally, but then I also don't publish anything, so I have no pressure to change my stance. I think I've convinced myself t…

It's an act of self-protection. I'm not anti-advertising. I'm anti-running-untrusted-software on my property. If they had stuck to adwords and static images with no invasive tracking I'd let their ads run. But the surveillance capitalists can't help themselves and want to run their 50MB spyware payload on my computer. I say no to that garbage.

Correct. Google had initially a good program that was based on keywords and non-intrusive ads. They killed that in the pursuit of more profits.

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

#94

Post by coliveira »

freitasm wrote: post #25

I joined AdSense in 2003. At peak it was generating US$15k a month. Nowadays it will be a miracle if it passes of US$800 a month. I think the shift to a more localised audience (NZ), diversion of ad spend to large social networks are responsible. Our traffic is similar in volume but nowhere near as "valuable" apparently.

For many people with decent traffic I believe it makes sense to sell their own local ads instead of depending on a network like Adsense.

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

#95

Post by coliveira »

drnick1 wrote: post #8

Aren't most people using ad blockers these days, making the revenue that one can generate with ads trivial unless traffic is enormous?

I never used adblock because if I don't like ads on a particular website I will simply not visit it anymore. And if I like it enough despite of the ads, I want to support them financially in some way.

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

#96

Post by onetokeoverthe »

breput wrote: post #13

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…

[dead]

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

#97

Post by stevekemp »

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…

I had a similar setup a few years back, initially I got a small amount of revenue, but over time things really dropped off.

Despite increasing visitors I was getting less and less income from the adverts, so I too chose to disable them.

I knew it was coming, because even ten years ago I was running an adblocker for myself, but it was still a surprise how quickly it came about for the average Joe.

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

#98

Post by gwern »

vitorgrs wrote: post #37
drnick1 wrote: post #8

Aren't most people using ad blockers these days, making the revenue that one can generate with ads trivial unless traffic is enormous?

You would be surprised to how little people use adblockers. Old data, but on my country for a major tech website, the number was 13%.

Similar numbers for other countries: https://gwern.net/banner#they-just-dont-know Wouldn't shock me if it's even lower as people move to walled-gardens like smartphones.

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

#99

Post by fg137 »

wfme wrote: post #16
drnick1 wrote: post #8

Aren't most people using ad blockers these days, making the revenue that one can generate with ads trivial unless traffic is enormous?

Popular in tech circles, but largely unused outside them.

Not even in "tech circles". Anecdotally, most of my colleagues -- mostly software engineers -- don't use adblocker at home or at work. It hurts my eye to see their screens. But they don't care.

(The workspace does not disallow adblocker extensions.)

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

#100

Post by PedroBatista »

tedeh wrote: post #68
quantummagic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Totally an organic and transparent marketplace that joins together publishers and consumers huh?

It has been down since the COVID boom for obvious reasons, and then it has gone even more.. Google needing the billions to put into the AI burner is just and unfortunate coincidence..

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