“We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

The nub of the thread is: these sites have put up ad blocker blockers, so you can't see the content without disabling your ad blocker. And yet when you do you are either exposed to full screen or video auto play ads, or in some cases, malware: http://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-rea...

Given that Reddit is a large source of incoming referrals this stance (if implemented) might be a sufficient lever to send a signal to get those sites to improve their environment.

In any case since the sites are still able to use curated self hosted ads (ie not JavaScript redirects to externally hosted providers) they are able to sell static ad space to make money even with adblockers enabled.

It might be worth seeing what the outcome for the experiment is (if it goes ahead) and then seeing if the same logic would work for HN.

I share the sentiment of the proposal, but what I really don't understand is why user moderation fails to suppress those sites despite their tactics angering so many people.

As noted other comments, this would only apply to the /r/technology subreddit. The general feedback is in favor of blocking these types of sites.

I'm pretty amazed at the current state of ads. With multiple ad exchanges, private sellers, and static brand deals, the entire serving process is a mess and users are paying for it. I don't think publishing websites are being malicious; they're incentived to make money and just haven't figured out how to do it at a high enough margin while keeping users happy. I just think the entire internet ad industry is in shambles and nobody really knows a solution that makes everyone happy.

The problem is that sites with advertisement are shooting themselves in the foot. They produce valuable and high quality content attracting readers and increase revenues by providing more advertisement. The amount of advertisement drops the efficiency of advertisement, so price drops and you put more advertisement. None of these people really considered the user experience on their site, except google on the google search result page.

This is like thinking that you would increase a crop yield by increasing the amount of fertilizer you put on it. There is an optimal balance beyond which you burn the crop with too much fertilizer.

I would suggest to significantly reduce the amount of advertisement on the site. Sell the add space with auction. Less advertisement increase the add efficiency. Increase the quality of content to increase the number of readers. Select high quality none intrusive adds that don't disrupt people's experience on the site.

In short take back the control of your site advertisement. Prohibit tricks your readers don't like (e.g. tracking), etc.

This is not much different from companies and hallmarks selling unhealthy food. The difference with adblocks is that people have a tool filtering out unhealthy food from their view. Who is the bad guy ? The client with its filter or the companies providing unhealthy food ?

Regulation doesn't work. We should know it by now. We have to take things in our own hand because the system is not able to keep a sane course by itself (cf. liberalism).

In response to ads, people install ad blockers.

In response to ad blockers, sites install ad blocker blockers.

In response to ad blocker blockers, Reddit adds ad blocker blocker blocker.