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The question I have: what's the advertisers' next move after iOS 9 drops? Feels like there are a few possibilities: - Nothing: the impact of users who install

The question I have: what's the advertisers' next move after iOS 9 drops? Feels like there are a few possibilities: - Nothing: the impact of users who install these plugins is minor. - They sue Apple. Feels like a short game. - Try and game the system: multiple domains to serve trackers and ads, etc. - They adjust their technology stack to serve fewer ads and reduce page bloat. - They put up paywalls. - They bet more heavily on things like Facebook or Apple's new News app. Of the options, #1 and #4 feel like the most likely options long-term. People want free content, which requires _some_ sort of revenue stream. And they don't want to put their futures in the hands of Apple or Facebook.

gergles 11y ago
They force everyone to install their 'app'. No content served for you if it sniffs Safari, and ads in the app then can't be blocked.
- derefr 11y ago
  If Content Blocking Extensions also run in the context of all UIWebViews, then they'll actually have to build an app, instead of an 'app'—and I doubt most providers would bother going that far.
  - LeoNatan25 11y ago
    WebViews do not go through content filters.
  - eridius 11y ago
    The run in SFSafariViewControllers, not all UIWebViews.
- cpeterso 11y ago
  So the Safari ad blocker is a strategy to undermine web advertising and push content providers into app silos using Apple's own ad network.
  - LeoNatan25 11y ago
    That's one of the conspiracy theories. I don't care if it is true. I have seen the benefits of content blockers to my browser speed, and I am happy about it either way. Ads on Apple News are very unobtrusive from what I've seen, and are all reviewed.
  - threeseed 11y ago
    Remember Apple is a product company not an advertising company. And if Apple could make web browsing 2x-3x as fast, battery life last 2x as long and enumerate benefits to privacy, security and user experience with no consequences why wouldn't they do it ? It makes their devices better in every regard than their competitors. And that's what they care about.
Terretta 11y ago
You missed one: - Render ads into page content server-side.
- ianlevesque 11y ago
  This is why element rules exist. Of course the probable outcome, more paid "articles" at the service of advertisers, may be worse than the banners ever were.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I have always been surprised why this does not exist already. Surely it can't be that hard to build a system that does this?
  - hysan 11y ago
    Problems with prerendering ads: 1. Prerendered ads would still be detectable if you leave in your tracking code client side. 2. If you take out the tracking code, then it would have to be handled on the server side. Which leads to the question, whose servers are handling this? And how is the data aggregated? 3. Also, without tracking code client side, it would be far less beneficial to advertisers because it would be much harder to tell who you are when you visit and decide what ad to serve you. I'm sure there are ways around this, but it is far more difficult compared to what they do now. 4. Caching. Of course these problems aren't impossible to get around, but prior to the iOS 9 stuff, there really was no benefit to even consider doing any of this.
Klathmon 11y ago
>They adjust their technology stack to serve fewer ads and reduce page bloat. This won't happen because there are already ad networks out there which are very lightweight and have strict rules (ex. Adsense). No more than 3 ads per page, rules about where they can be, and how big they can be, and that they can't do things like interrupt the flow of the page, (so no ads in between paragraphs). No animations, no video, no misleading/attention grabbing ads, no pushing content below the fold, no moving ads, the list goes on and on and on. Sadly most content creators don't use them because they don't pay as well as the scummy networks. Plus people still block them all the same while assuming they are the scummy networks. It's now a lose-lose situation to try and be a good ad network now. (Remember what happened when adblock tried to allow unobtrusive ads? The internet collectively tried to kill them over it!) I see your number 3 as the one that will be most likely.
- eridius 11y ago
  I thought the internet got mad at AdBlock not because it was allowing "unobtrusive" ads, but because it was allowing ad companies to pay AdBlock to be put on the whitelist.
- danneu 11y ago
  > Sadly most content creators don't use them because > they don't pay as well as the scummy networks. I thought people only use scummy networks when they're banned from Adsense or in an Adsense-prohibited domain like porn. Adsense seems to have much better payout than just about anything. Also, you can get bad, misleading, or animated ads on Adsense like that fake "Download" button you see on scummy sites. Just keep "Enable 3rd Partners" and respective checkboxes checked.
  - Klathmon 11y ago
    People use scummy networks because they pay magnitudes more than the nice ones. I have an adsense site that is averaging about 0.5% CTR. And those "download button" ads aren't through AdSense. There are other networks under Google like doubleclick that serve the "scummy-er" ads. (which IMO they should crack down on) If you do see any ads that do things like fake download buttons in what they call "display ads" then they should be reported, as that specific example is used as a not-okay ad.
amartya916 11y ago
They'll recommend Chrome (I am assuming the content blocker cannot persist across UIWebviews or WKWebViews). "If you want to view this content, download and install Chrome" In this case, I expect Google and the advertiser's interests to align.
- rdsnsca 11y ago
  All telling me to use Chrome would do is guarantee i never visit your website again.
  - bildung 11y ago
    > All telling me to use Chrome would do is guarantee i never visit your website again. Why should amartya916 care? If you'd have ads blocked, your visit would only use up bandwidth anyway, without a chance to generate revenue through ads. So without the "use chrome" wall for Safari users, s/he wouldn't generate ad views. With that wall, there's at least the chance of people switching to chrome.
    - rdsnsca 11y ago
      He should care because you will go to his competition.
      - bildung 11y ago
        * > He should care because you will go to his competition.* Yes, thats an option. But with web publishing, which is mostly inbound traffic through search engines, that doesn't matter. That isn't exactly a niche where sustainable customer relationships are top priority. * option 1: Safari user with ad blocker visits site. bandwidth costs: yes. ad revenue: no -> net negative * option 2: Safari user gets chrome-walled. bandwidth costs: no. ad revenue: no, but slight chance of switch to chrome -> net neutral with slight chance of net positive * option 3: Safari user goes to competition (= different google result). bandwidth costs: no. ad revenue: no -> net neutral.
- 11y ago
Chris_Newton 11y ago
I suspect that for free content, we can look forward to ever more product placement and sponsored material, i.e., ads you can’t conveniently skip/ignore instead of standalone ads that are more easily blocked. It's been working (for sufficiently generous values of “working”) that way with TV and films for a while. Personally, I’d rather see more effective forms of paying directly and not compromise the integrity of the content, but then I’m the guy who still buys box sets of spinning discs to enjoy my favourite shows uninterrupted and legally instead of either watching the ad-ridden ones on TV or pirating them on-line, so I guess I’m probably in a minority these days. Given that we’ve yet to solve the micropayments problem, and even if we did it’s not entirely clear how well it would work, I wonder whether the most promising avenue might be some sort of collective subscription scheme. Smaller (or not) sites could join a collective programme that includes a lot of different sites aimed at similar audiences, there would effectively be a paywall but paid through a single centralised subscription rather than every individual site so much of the time users wouldn’t actually see it, and then some sort of simple marker that indicates you’re a subscriber and gets you in would also let the scheme track which sites were getting the most views and adjust payments in some reasonable way proportionate to value. Some of the most successful on-line business models of recent times, other than ad-based and direct payment, seem to have been the library-style services like Netflix and Spotify, so I could believe this sort of collective subscription scheme could work if anyone had enough resources to get it up to a useful number of publishers and subscribers to be credible quickly enough. It feels like a balance of convenience and commercial viability that might actually work to me. A significant problem might be that the umbrella schemes wind up taking a huge chunk of the revenue for themselves instead of passing it on to the real content providers, since the whole model depends on having a small enough number of schemes to be manageable for customers and that implies a degree of consolidation. Then again, we have a similar problem with big ad networks and with other types of middleman site today, so I’m not sure it would necessarily be any worse and at least very successful sites could still go their own way if they were valuable enough to their users so there would always be some inherent competition for any umbrella scheme.
bpodgursky 11y ago
4 is pointless to implement because you're in a tragedy of the commons scenario. The worst actor drives adblock installs, and limiting your own ads will just lose you revenue since adblocks don't discriminate networks.
stevesearer 11y ago
This might be a dumb question, but I am a web publisher and have no idea what you mean about changes to iOS 9. Is there an ad blocker installed automatically or something? What is changing and what does it mean for a publisher like myself who self hosts ads I personally sell without using an ad network?
- hutattedonmyarm 11y ago
  iOS 9 enables content blockers for Safari
- wfleming 11y ago
  There is a new content blocking API in iOS 9 that makes it possible to write third-party ad-blockers. Apple isn't writing their own, or pre-installing one, or anything like that. (At least, nothing like that has been publicly discussed, and I'd be very surprised if it was something they did.)
- swinglock 11y ago
  In iOS 9 third party apps will be able to install a block list to disable ads in Safari. This shouldn't mean anything special to you since it's not done by default and so it's no different from what has already been the case for over a decade on other systems.
feld 11y ago
they buy iAds

gergles 11y ago

They force everyone to install their 'app'. No content served for you if it sniffs Safari, and ads in the app then can't be blocked.

derefr 11y ago
If Content Blocking Extensions also run in the context of all UIWebViews, then they'll actually have to build an app, instead of an 'app'—and I doubt most providers would bother going that far.
- LeoNatan25 11y ago
  WebViews do not go through content filters.
- eridius 11y ago
  The run in SFSafariViewControllers, not all UIWebViews.
cpeterso 11y ago
So the Safari ad blocker is a strategy to undermine web advertising and push content providers into app silos using Apple's own ad network.
- LeoNatan25 11y ago
  That's one of the conspiracy theories. I don't care if it is true. I have seen the benefits of content blockers to my browser speed, and I am happy about it either way. Ads on Apple News are very unobtrusive from what I've seen, and are all reviewed.
- threeseed 11y ago
  Remember Apple is a product company not an advertising company. And if Apple could make web browsing 2x-3x as fast, battery life last 2x as long and enumerate benefits to privacy, security and user experience with no consequences why wouldn't they do it ? It makes their devices better in every regard than their competitors. And that's what they care about.

Terretta 11y ago

You missed one: - Render ads into page content server-side.

ianlevesque 11y ago
This is why element rules exist. Of course the probable outcome, more paid "articles" at the service of advertisers, may be worse than the banners ever were.
danieltillett 11y ago
I have always been surprised why this does not exist already. Surely it can't be that hard to build a system that does this?
- hysan 11y ago
  Problems with prerendering ads: 1. Prerendered ads would still be detectable if you leave in your tracking code client side. 2. If you take out the tracking code, then it would have to be handled on the server side. Which leads to the question, whose servers are handling this? And how is the data aggregated? 3. Also, without tracking code client side, it would be far less beneficial to advertisers because it would be much harder to tell who you are when you visit and decide what ad to serve you. I'm sure there are ways around this, but it is far more difficult compared to what they do now. 4. Caching. Of course these problems aren't impossible to get around, but prior to the iOS 9 stuff, there really was no benefit to even consider doing any of this.

Klathmon 11y ago

>They adjust their technology stack to serve fewer ads and reduce page bloat. This won't happen because there are already ad networks out there which are very lightweight and have strict rules (ex. Adsense). No more than 3 ads per page, rules about where they can be, and how big they can be, and that they can't do things like interrupt the flow of the page, (so no ads in between paragraphs). No animations, no video, no misleading/attention grabbing ads, no pushing content below the fold, no moving ads, the list goes on and on and on. Sadly most content creators don't use them because they don't pay as well as the scummy networks. Plus people still block them all the same while assuming they are the scummy networks. It's now a lose-lose situation to try and be a good ad network now. (Remember what happened when adblock tried to allow unobtrusive ads? The internet collectively tried to kill them over it!) I see your number 3 as the one that will be most likely.

eridius 11y ago
I thought the internet got mad at AdBlock not because it was allowing "unobtrusive" ads, but because it was allowing ad companies to pay AdBlock to be put on the whitelist.
danneu 11y ago
> Sadly most content creators don't use them because > they don't pay as well as the scummy networks. I thought people only use scummy networks when they're banned from Adsense or in an Adsense-prohibited domain like porn. Adsense seems to have much better payout than just about anything. Also, you can get bad, misleading, or animated ads on Adsense like that fake "Download" button you see on scummy sites. Just keep "Enable 3rd Partners" and respective checkboxes checked.
- Klathmon 11y ago
  People use scummy networks because they pay magnitudes more than the nice ones. I have an adsense site that is averaging about 0.5% CTR. And those "download button" ads aren't through AdSense. There are other networks under Google like doubleclick that serve the "scummy-er" ads. (which IMO they should crack down on) If you do see any ads that do things like fake download buttons in what they call "display ads" then they should be reported, as that specific example is used as a not-okay ad.

amartya916 11y ago

They'll recommend Chrome (I am assuming the content blocker cannot persist across UIWebviews or WKWebViews). "If you want to view this content, download and install Chrome" In this case, I expect Google and the advertiser's interests to align.

rdsnsca 11y ago
All telling me to use Chrome would do is guarantee i never visit your website again.
- bildung 11y ago
  > All telling me to use Chrome would do is guarantee i never visit your website again. Why should amartya916 care? If you'd have ads blocked, your visit would only use up bandwidth anyway, without a chance to generate revenue through ads. So without the "use chrome" wall for Safari users, s/he wouldn't generate ad views. With that wall, there's at least the chance of people switching to chrome.
  - rdsnsca 11y ago
    He should care because you will go to his competition.
    - bildung 11y ago
      * > He should care because you will go to his competition.* Yes, thats an option. But with web publishing, which is mostly inbound traffic through search engines, that doesn't matter. That isn't exactly a niche where sustainable customer relationships are top priority. * option 1: Safari user with ad blocker visits site. bandwidth costs: yes. ad revenue: no -> net negative * option 2: Safari user gets chrome-walled. bandwidth costs: no. ad revenue: no, but slight chance of switch to chrome -> net neutral with slight chance of net positive * option 3: Safari user goes to competition (= different google result). bandwidth costs: no. ad revenue: no -> net neutral.
11y ago

Chris_Newton 11y ago

I suspect that for free content, we can look forward to ever more product placement and sponsored material, i.e., ads you can’t conveniently skip/ignore instead of standalone ads that are more easily blocked. It's been working (for sufficiently generous values of “working”) that way with TV and films for a while. Personally, I’d rather see more effective forms of paying directly and not compromise the integrity of the content, but then I’m the guy who still buys box sets of spinning discs to enjoy my favourite shows uninterrupted and legally instead of either watching the ad-ridden ones on TV or pirating them on-line, so I guess I’m probably in a minority these days. Given that we’ve yet to solve the micropayments problem, and even if we did it’s not entirely clear how well it would work, I wonder whether the most promising avenue might be some sort of collective subscription scheme. Smaller (or not) sites could join a collective programme that includes a lot of different sites aimed at similar audiences, there would effectively be a paywall but paid through a single centralised subscription rather than every individual site so much of the time users wouldn’t actually see it, and then some sort of simple marker that indicates you’re a subscriber and gets you in would also let the scheme track which sites were getting the most views and adjust payments in some reasonable way proportionate to value. Some of the most successful on-line business models of recent times, other than ad-based and direct payment, seem to have been the library-style services like Netflix and Spotify, so I could believe this sort of collective subscription scheme could work if anyone had enough resources to get it up to a useful number of publishers and subscribers to be credible quickly enough. It feels like a balance of convenience and commercial viability that might actually work to me. A significant problem might be that the umbrella schemes wind up taking a huge chunk of the revenue for themselves instead of passing it on to the real content providers, since the whole model depends on having a small enough number of schemes to be manageable for customers and that implies a degree of consolidation. Then again, we have a similar problem with big ad networks and with other types of middleman site today, so I’m not sure it would necessarily be any worse and at least very successful sites could still go their own way if they were valuable enough to their users so there would always be some inherent competition for any umbrella scheme.

bpodgursky 11y ago

4 is pointless to implement because you're in a tragedy of the commons scenario. The worst actor drives adblock installs, and limiting your own ads will just lose you revenue since adblocks don't discriminate networks.

stevesearer 11y ago

This might be a dumb question, but I am a web publisher and have no idea what you mean about changes to iOS 9. Is there an ad blocker installed automatically or something? What is changing and what does it mean for a publisher like myself who self hosts ads I personally sell without using an ad network?

hutattedonmyarm 11y ago
iOS 9 enables content blockers for Safari
wfleming 11y ago
There is a new content blocking API in iOS 9 that makes it possible to write third-party ad-blockers. Apple isn't writing their own, or pre-installing one, or anything like that. (At least, nothing like that has been publicly discussed, and I'd be very surprised if it was something they did.)
swinglock 11y ago
In iOS 9 third party apps will be able to install a block list to disable ads in Safari. This shouldn't mean anything special to you since it's not done by default and so it's no different from what has already been the case for over a decade on other systems.

feld 11y ago

they buy iAds