6 ms·

Beyond ad blocking – the biggest boycott in human history

77 points by franze 11y ago

irl_zebra 11y ago
Interesting conclusions, but they seem to be inevitable: One is that ad blockers will evolve to valving systems for accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff. (I explain the difference in the first post in this series. And, sez AdExchanger, 71% of Ad-Block Users Would Consider Whitelisting Sites That Don’t Suck.) The other is that we’ll help marketers think past abuse and coercion as ways to get what they want out of customers. After that happens, they’ll realize that — 1. Free customers are far more valuable than captive ones 2. Genuine relationships are worth far more than the kind that is coerced 3. Volunteered (and truly relevant) personal data is worth far more than the kind that is involuntarily fracked 4. Expressions of real intent by customers are worth far more than guesswork fed by fracked data
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  > One is that ad blockers will evolve to valving systems for accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff. Well, I guess that is essentially what Ad-Block Plus is doing. They whitelist ads that are not intrusive and make the web a reasonable place to browse, while making a little money in the meantime. I like that idea, of purifying the web of bad content.
  - irl_zebra 11y ago
    It is a good idea, but I've had some annoying content slip through the whitelist, so usually I just turn it off. If you whitelist Reddit for example, it often displays these creepy "non-ad" ads [1] to "thank you" for not using an adblocker. I would rather there just be no ads versus non-ad ads + real ads. So I just keep the whitelist off and see no ads at all, ever. [1] https://55b8aba7dfd6c1911d2f4669ef645bd07e319f75.googledrive.com/host/0B8LRS7vgjAmhT01jNzVhUU5LUk0/img/reddit2.png https://55b8aba7dfd6c1911d2f4669ef645bd07e319f75.googledrive...
- liotier 11y ago
  > accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff What makes you believe that users see any value in ads ?
  - irl_zebra 11y ago
    I see value in ads when they target me specifically and alert me to some product or product alternative that I didn't know about before the ad. But that is a very small sliver of ads. There's a blog I follow that doesn't use ads but rather product recommendations with Amazon affiliate links. This type of advertising is pretty valuable to me and when/if I want to purchase the product, I use the affiliate link to do so to "pay" the blog author for the high quality content.
- monochromatic 11y ago
  > One is that ad blockers will evolve to valving systems for accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff. Probably so. But at the moment, all we have is some ad blockers accepting money from advertisers for whitelisting their ads. This is such an obvious conflict of interest that I'm sort of shocked it even happens. I wonder if it would be workable to have some sort of centralized, disinterested group to make those determinations of wheat/chaff... instead of leaving it to the venal whims of individual blockers.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Most of your premises in a numbered list are quite inaccurate from a business POV but this one is definitively wrong: "Free customers are far more valuable than captive ones". Captive customers aka vendor lock-in aka high switching costs is a very significant factor of a long term company valuation/capitalization. Absolute majority of companies would prefer totally locked-in customers if such lock-in doesn't hurt customer acquisition.
LesZedCB 11y ago
This feels reminiscent of the arguments over piracy and content distribution media. Back before spotify and netflix and itunes, pirating music was just the way of life. People made moral arguments one way or the other and they both had credibility. Now that we have essentially moved away from that model, I've noticed discussion about piracy drastically fall off many discussion forums. Now the same thing is happening with advertising and ad blocking. Both sides have reasonable arguments, and the discussion really doesn't seem to be getting anywhere at all. "Ads pay for your free content!" "This content is so full of other garbage it isn't even consumable in the first place!" etc, etc. The google service to pay for ad space was interesting, I am curious if that will translate to the new "spotify" of the music industry. People might be more willing to pay monthly subscriptions for high quality, ad-free content. I most likely would be. However, the most disappointing thing from that article is the search history for "do not track." That is why I run an ad-blocker. The amount of web tracking that happens is super creepy and ethically grey at best. I don't want to be a part of that system, and if running a script blocker does that, that supersedes any ethical qualms I have with blocking ads.
- Touche 11y ago
  Blocking ads is no different from skipping commercials with DVR. If you answer my http request with 200 OK I am doing nothing unethical by discarding part of the response I'm disinterested in, just as I'm doing nothing unethical by pressing "fast forward" on my Tivo.
  - LesZedCB 11y ago
    I'm generally in agreement with you. I'm just trying to present the arguments equally from both sides.
    - Touche 11y ago
      The other side has no argument. You can't give something away and then dictate how it is used.
- dublinben 11y ago
eddd 11y ago
from: http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html " 12. Fix advertising. Advertising could be made much better if it tried to please its audience, instead of treating them like victims who deserve x amount of abuse in return for whatever free site they're getting. It doesn't work anyway; audiences learn to tune out boring ads, no matter how loud they shout. What we have now is basically print and TV advertising translated to the web. The right answer will probably look very different. It might not even seem like advertising, by current standards. So the way to approach this problem is probably to start over from scratch: to think what the goal of advertising is, and ask how to do that using the new ingredients technology gives us. Probably the new answers exist already, in some early form that will only later be recognized as the replacement for traditional advertising " The problem is that advertising business started abusing users too much and we just have enough.
- rjsw 11y ago
  I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem if we did have old-style print advertising embedded in web pages, it usually followed the same visual style as the articles. Before the web, I used to buy computer magazines as much for the ads as for the supposed "real" content.
- mtgx 11y ago
  Seth Godin said something along those lines, too: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/09/ad-blocking.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/09/ad-blocking....
- dozzie 11y ago
  > [web advertising] might not even seem like advertising, by current standards. I agree. This is one commercial video I enjoyed watching (Jimmy DiResta): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOawsNpTEYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOawsNpTEYk There are several aspects of this that made it a good medium: * it was clear it was paid by DeWalt to make * if one took away all the DeWalt tools, the video would still be fun to watch * it was me who decided to watch it, not a random third party
cornholio 11y ago
"You seem to have adblocking enabled. Please deposit 0.05 mBTC to the address bellow to white-list this device." It's not really a war, it's a negotiation.
- pjc50 11y ago
  People seem even less willing to cross paywalls than they do to accept ads.
niravshah 11y ago
I strongly agree that adtech has overstepped bounds in a number of ways, but articles like this seem more interested in claiming the moral high ground for ad blockers, equating them with consumer activism. However, ad blockers are clearly not a boycott - websites are still being "dealt with" (i.e. content is being consumed) to use the definition language, they are just not being paid. Disclaimer/Context: I was the Product Manager for Ad Products at Vox Media for 2+ years
- monochromatic 11y ago
  I actually think ad blockers have the moral high(er) ground, but it is weird to call it a boycott.
  - hrvbr 11y ago
    It's the boycott of a business model, more than of the companies who use it.
    - monochromatic 11y ago
      I mean, I get that... but that's not what "boycott" means.
- electricblue 11y ago
  I don't know what you get for calling it a boycott or not (can I pay with my moral high ground?), it is clearly a mass rejection of targeted advertising in all its forms and that seems to be the important part.
- jalfresi 11y ago
  If you put something out there for consumption on a public forum in a medium that allows me to determine how I consume it, then you are a fool if you believe you have any say in how I do consume it. You don't have any control in this matter and you have tied yourself to a business model that requires you to be able to dictate the terms of consumption. I pay for my expensive bandwidth. If you attempt to pollute the bandwidth I pay for do not be surprised if I cut out the crap you try to force feed me. If you can't support your business that's your problem. After all, the down side from all these businesses folding is that we go back to a web when such parasitic practacies didn't exist, well that sound like a deal to me!
perlgeek 11y ago
To put things into perspective: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20block%20ads%2C%20retargeting%2C%20justin%20bieber&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4 http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20b... yes, interest in ad blocking is growing, but these search term graphs don't show that it has arrived at the scale of the general public yet.
- franze 11y ago
  difference: young girls / boys google %celebrity name% here again and again. you only ask %how to block ads% once. and then again http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20block%20ads%2C%20retargeting%2C%20justin%20bieber%2C%20adblock&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4 http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20b... -> in june 2015 "adblock" was 75% as popular as "justin biber"
- po1nter 11y ago
  Your perspective is skewed. Try this https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=adblock%2C%20justin%20bieber&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT-2 https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=adblock%2C%20justin%...
mariusz79 11y ago
War on Ads will end just like the War On Terror, War On Drugs, War on Cancer and all other similar wars - there will be more of X, in this case Ads. To win that war we would need to change ourselves, and that's not going to happen. When I tell people that I have no cable, and Netflix/Amazon Prime is enough for my entertainment needs they are quickly to point out that I can't see the newest shows, or movies. My answer is always the same - it's entertainment - an activity that is just a small part of my life, not something that defines it.. Yet people act like they are losing part of themselves when they can't watch their favorite shows, or sporting events. That's why online streaming has so much problem acquiring new shows - cable networks know that some people are just too attached to their mindless entertainment, and will never give it up. A similar situation can be observed with the web and ads. People just want their fix of entertainment even if it means that they are being tracked, hacked and used. And it's never going to change.
liotier 11y ago
Users realize they can fight sensory pollution - advertiser outrage ensues... The arms race rages on !
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
criddell 11y ago
Tracking, it's been argued, is good because it allows more relevant ads to be served. I've been giving Google huge amounts of data about me and my life for almost 20 years and the ads are still terrible. I spend thousands of dollars every year at Amazon and their recommendation engine doesn't do much better. How much more do advertisers need to know about me before ads served online are significantly more relevant than the ads I see in People magazine at the doctor's office? At this point, I'm super skeptical about the ad business. Advertisements don't really bother me that much, but I'm becoming less comfortable with being tracked. I would love to see a study that compares the costs of tracking with the added value of tracking and see who pays those costs and who benefits from the value.
- electricblue 11y ago
  Google benefits, the costs are negligible compared to the revenue they get. Its the entire business model. The problem for content creators is I can't think of much written content that i'm willing to pay a subscription fee for. I doubt I am alone in this.
  - criddell 11y ago
    > the costs are negligible The costs are not negligible. Tracking scripts use a lot of bandwidth and (on mobile) battery power.
    - astazangasta 11y ago
      The costs are negligible for Google. See here: https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html The major stated revenue costs seem to be traffic acquisition costs (payouts for YouTube and the like, I imagine). Bandwidth is probably a minor issue - anyway they are making 60% profits on revenues of $66 billion a year.
    - Spivak 11y ago
      Exactly, just because the cost is distributed doesn't mean it's not being paid in one form or another. If ad networks actually had to pay the cost, say $10/GB of traffic they served to mobile devices, ads would be lighter and far less spammy.
hiou 11y ago
Since we're running full steam ahead in correlation, I'll throw in that around 2012 was when Facebook started displaying ads.
bsder 11y ago
I suspect that the problem is that advertising is chasing increasingly fewer fixed dollars. Consequently, it has had to get more and more aggressive to have any impact. Most people are spending at their limits. They have fixed budgets on which to spend things. So, to change their behavior, you have to apply a huge bat to get to even the 0.1% you can actually change. Unfortunately, that offends the 99.9%. There is a reason why advertisers target new mothers the most. It's the single time when people's habits get completely disrupted and can be rearranged.
fossuser 11y ago
I think it's kind of specious to claim that the reason ad blocking software is more common now is because websites started ignoring Do Not Track. Most people who use the internet don't know anything about this. It probably just took a while for there to be enough 'friends good with computers' who knew about ad blocking and installed the plugins for their family and friends. That kind of knowledge takes a bit to penetrate. Once people see it works they keep using it because a web without ads is objectively better for the individual user (ignoring what might happen if ad revenue was no longer viable to fund the free services everyone uses).
roymurdock 11y ago
The author says that we, as consumers, need to "engage" advertisers because they have power (to do what?), and because we all have a stake in each other's success. He offers this explanation: The only way engagement will work is through tools that are ours, and we control: tools that give us scale — like a handshake gives us scale. What engages us with the Washington Post should also engage us with Verge and Huffpo. What engages us with Mercedes should also engage us with a Ford dealer or a shoe store. Does anyone know what he is talking about here? I re-read the article 2 or 3 times and skimmed the linked article in an attempt to figure out what part scale plays in a handshake. If anything, a handshake is anti-scale because its a personal gesture that you can only do with one other person at a time. But the author says that engagement should scale across all verticals (automakers, shoe stores) and all brands (Huffington Post, Verge). Seems like an inherent contradiction. Am I parsing his meaning/terminology incorrectly? Also, why do a plurality of smart people involved in the ad industry keep pushing for us, the consumers, to "help marketers think past abuse and coercion"? Advertisers have had plenty of time to think and reflect upon their business model. They have chosen to disrespect us, violate our privacy, and chase short-term profits at the expense of long-term customer satisfaction. Now they are receiving their just desserts because people hate they way they have been treated. The sites that host these ads are also guilty by proxy because they know exactly what they are doing. What is there to talk about/negotiate in this situation?
- forgottenpass 11y ago
  What is there to talk about/negotiate in this situation? Nothing; we're being conned. They know what they want, they know nobody else wants that, so they disingenuously play to human nature. By stating that they should be engaged with directly, they attempt to make blocking seem like an unreasonable rejection of working with them. They have no interest in cooperating, so it's just manipulative. It's the same exact hustle we've seen with whistleblowers (and protesters) time and time again for ages. Some blowhard says that they're for reform, and support the concept of whistleblowing in general. But in this one specific case, the whistle-blowing just wasn't done right, and there are certainly more-effective routes to that reform, with less collaterally damage that should have been used instead. Nah, that's just someone that exists to make sure the status quo doesn't change. Sorta related, about the NSA/ATT relationship: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7325100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7325100
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
I agree and I like the way this author words the "fight". It has always baffled me how an entire industry can build up around the trust system because in the end that's what the majority of online advertisement is. You send me data, my screen chooses what to display.
imagex 11y ago
There's a strange note of entitlement that seems to pop up whenever discussions about ad blocking arise. It smacks of the piracy argument, "if producers didn't make it so difficult to consume the content, I wouldn't pirate it." The argument isn't about whether or not it's theft, so much as whether or not consumers agree with the method and constraints on the intersection between distribution and consumption. In the case of 'free' content on the web: site 'owners' create and serve content, often via paid servers with labor overhead in the form of creation, curation, programming infrastructure/support, sysadmins, and so forth. The server sits in one or more datacenters, waiting for requests. Let's use the house metaphor: say I create a website, www.thisismyhouse.com and you like the content, so you visit my (open) house. My house has certain conventions, social compacts, if you will. You don't enter without some sense that there are obligations on both sides: if I am an irritating host, you don't stay and eat my food, you leave. If you are an irritating guest, you are escorted out. At no time in the physical world is there a situation where you can use technology to mute the host while still eating the food (aside from <insert dated in-laws joke here> ). "Oho!" someone exclaims, "I spent fuel and time" (internet bandwidth) "to visit your house! This cost me (unit of value) too!" So we agree that both sides have a monetary/value stake in this transaction. But there are rules, folks. The content isn't free and never was. Just because you can line up at the buffet and filter out the environment until it meets your requirements through technology doesn't mean that you have an ongoing right to keep visiting (consuming). Free content sites are like trialware: you visit, decide if you like it, then pay if you keep using it, and the price is set by the author (ads, subscriptions, you name it). If you don't like the price, you don't get to keep eating your fill. I'm not a fan of ads, but I accept them as by and large the price of admission to the content I like. There are plenty of ways to get around tracking without fully blocking ads, so that doesn't really concern me). If the ads are just too much, I go elsewhere. How complicated is that?
mgalka 11y ago
Reminds me of the time when everyone (myself included) felt entitled to free MP3's, and then got pissed when the record companies disagreed. A boycott is when you abstain from transacting. Ad blockers are not a boycott, they're just a legal way of stealing someone else's work.

77 points by franze 11y ago

Interesting conclusions, but they seem to be inevitable: One is that ad blockers will evolve to valving systems for accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff. (I explain the difference in the first post in this series. And, sez AdExchanger, 71% of Ad-Block Users Would Consider Whitelisting Sites That Don’t Suck.) The other is that we’ll help marketers think past abuse and coercion as ways to get what they want out of customers. After that happens, they’ll realize that — 1. Free customers are far more valuable than captive ones 2. Genuine relationships are worth far more than the kind that is coerced 3. Volunteered (and truly relevant) personal data is worth far more than the kind that is involuntarily fracked 4. Expressions of real intent by customers are worth far more than guesswork fed by fracked data

LesZedCB 11y ago
> One is that ad blockers will evolve to valving systems for accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff. Well, I guess that is essentially what Ad-Block Plus is doing. They whitelist ads that are not intrusive and make the web a reasonable place to browse, while making a little money in the meantime. I like that idea, of purifying the web of bad content.
- irl_zebra 11y ago
  It is a good idea, but I've had some annoying content slip through the whitelist, so usually I just turn it off. If you whitelist Reddit for example, it often displays these creepy "non-ad" ads [1] to "thank you" for not using an adblocker. I would rather there just be no ads versus non-ad ads + real ads. So I just keep the whitelist off and see no ads at all, ever. [1] https://55b8aba7dfd6c1911d2f4669ef645bd07e319f75.googledrive.com/host/0B8LRS7vgjAmhT01jNzVhUU5LUk0/img/reddit2.png https://55b8aba7dfd6c1911d2f4669ef645bd07e319f75.googledrive...
liotier 11y ago
> accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff What makes you believe that users see any value in ads ?
- irl_zebra 11y ago
  I see value in ads when they target me specifically and alert me to some product or product alternative that I didn't know about before the ad. But that is a very small sliver of ads. There's a blog I follow that doesn't use ads but rather product recommendations with Amazon affiliate links. This type of advertising is pretty valuable to me and when/if I want to purchase the product, I use the affiliate link to do so to "pay" the blog author for the high quality content.
monochromatic 11y ago
> One is that ad blockers will evolve to valving systems for accepting advertising’s wheat while rejecting its chaff. Probably so. But at the moment, all we have is some ad blockers accepting money from advertisers for whitelisting their ads. This is such an obvious conflict of interest that I'm sort of shocked it even happens. I wonder if it would be workable to have some sort of centralized, disinterested group to make those determinations of wheat/chaff... instead of leaving it to the venal whims of individual blockers.
vdaniuk 11y ago
Most of your premises in a numbered list are quite inaccurate from a business POV but this one is definitively wrong: "Free customers are far more valuable than captive ones". Captive customers aka vendor lock-in aka high switching costs is a very significant factor of a long term company valuation/capitalization. Absolute majority of companies would prefer totally locked-in customers if such lock-in doesn't hurt customer acquisition.

LesZedCB 11y ago

This feels reminiscent of the arguments over piracy and content distribution media. Back before spotify and netflix and itunes, pirating music was just the way of life. People made moral arguments one way or the other and they both had credibility. Now that we have essentially moved away from that model, I've noticed discussion about piracy drastically fall off many discussion forums. Now the same thing is happening with advertising and ad blocking. Both sides have reasonable arguments, and the discussion really doesn't seem to be getting anywhere at all. "Ads pay for your free content!" "This content is so full of other garbage it isn't even consumable in the first place!" etc, etc. The google service to pay for ad space was interesting, I am curious if that will translate to the new "spotify" of the music industry. People might be more willing to pay monthly subscriptions for high quality, ad-free content. I most likely would be. However, the most disappointing thing from that article is the search history for "do not track." That is why I run an ad-blocker. The amount of web tracking that happens is super creepy and ethically grey at best. I don't want to be a part of that system, and if running a script blocker does that, that supersedes any ethical qualms I have with blocking ads.

Touche 11y ago
Blocking ads is no different from skipping commercials with DVR. If you answer my http request with 200 OK I am doing nothing unethical by discarding part of the response I'm disinterested in, just as I'm doing nothing unethical by pressing "fast forward" on my Tivo.
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  I'm generally in agreement with you. I'm just trying to present the arguments equally from both sides.
  - Touche 11y ago
    The other side has no argument. You can't give something away and then dictate how it is used.
dublinben 11y ago

eddd 11y ago

from: http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html " 12. Fix advertising. Advertising could be made much better if it tried to please its audience, instead of treating them like victims who deserve x amount of abuse in return for whatever free site they're getting. It doesn't work anyway; audiences learn to tune out boring ads, no matter how loud they shout. What we have now is basically print and TV advertising translated to the web. The right answer will probably look very different. It might not even seem like advertising, by current standards. So the way to approach this problem is probably to start over from scratch: to think what the goal of advertising is, and ask how to do that using the new ingredients technology gives us. Probably the new answers exist already, in some early form that will only later be recognized as the replacement for traditional advertising " The problem is that advertising business started abusing users too much and we just have enough.

rjsw 11y ago
I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem if we did have old-style print advertising embedded in web pages, it usually followed the same visual style as the articles. Before the web, I used to buy computer magazines as much for the ads as for the supposed "real" content.
mtgx 11y ago
Seth Godin said something along those lines, too: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/09/ad-blocking.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/09/ad-blocking....
dozzie 11y ago
> [web advertising] might not even seem like advertising, by current standards. I agree. This is one commercial video I enjoyed watching (Jimmy DiResta): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOawsNpTEYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOawsNpTEYk There are several aspects of this that made it a good medium: * it was clear it was paid by DeWalt to make * if one took away all the DeWalt tools, the video would still be fun to watch * it was me who decided to watch it, not a random third party

cornholio 11y ago

"You seem to have adblocking enabled. Please deposit 0.05 mBTC to the address bellow to white-list this device." It's not really a war, it's a negotiation.

pjc50 11y ago
People seem even less willing to cross paywalls than they do to accept ads.

niravshah 11y ago

I strongly agree that adtech has overstepped bounds in a number of ways, but articles like this seem more interested in claiming the moral high ground for ad blockers, equating them with consumer activism. However, ad blockers are clearly not a boycott - websites are still being "dealt with" (i.e. content is being consumed) to use the definition language, they are just not being paid. Disclaimer/Context: I was the Product Manager for Ad Products at Vox Media for 2+ years

monochromatic 11y ago
I actually think ad blockers have the moral high(er) ground, but it is weird to call it a boycott.
- hrvbr 11y ago
  It's the boycott of a business model, more than of the companies who use it.
  - monochromatic 11y ago
    I mean, I get that... but that's not what "boycott" means.
electricblue 11y ago
I don't know what you get for calling it a boycott or not (can I pay with my moral high ground?), it is clearly a mass rejection of targeted advertising in all its forms and that seems to be the important part.
jalfresi 11y ago
If you put something out there for consumption on a public forum in a medium that allows me to determine how I consume it, then you are a fool if you believe you have any say in how I do consume it. You don't have any control in this matter and you have tied yourself to a business model that requires you to be able to dictate the terms of consumption. I pay for my expensive bandwidth. If you attempt to pollute the bandwidth I pay for do not be surprised if I cut out the crap you try to force feed me. If you can't support your business that's your problem. After all, the down side from all these businesses folding is that we go back to a web when such parasitic practacies didn't exist, well that sound like a deal to me!

perlgeek 11y ago

To put things into perspective: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20block%20ads%2C%20retargeting%2C%20justin%20bieber&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4 http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20b... yes, interest in ad blocking is growing, but these search term graphs don't show that it has arrived at the scale of the general public yet.

franze 11y ago
difference: young girls / boys google %celebrity name% here again and again. you only ask %how to block ads% once. and then again http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20block%20ads%2C%20retargeting%2C%20justin%20bieber%2C%20adblock&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4 http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=how%20to%20b... -> in june 2015 "adblock" was 75% as popular as "justin biber"
po1nter 11y ago
Your perspective is skewed. Try this https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=adblock%2C%20justin%20bieber&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT-2 https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=adblock%2C%20justin%...

mariusz79 11y ago

War on Ads will end just like the War On Terror, War On Drugs, War on Cancer and all other similar wars - there will be more of X, in this case Ads. To win that war we would need to change ourselves, and that's not going to happen. When I tell people that I have no cable, and Netflix/Amazon Prime is enough for my entertainment needs they are quickly to point out that I can't see the newest shows, or movies. My answer is always the same - it's entertainment - an activity that is just a small part of my life, not something that defines it.. Yet people act like they are losing part of themselves when they can't watch their favorite shows, or sporting events. That's why online streaming has so much problem acquiring new shows - cable networks know that some people are just too attached to their mindless entertainment, and will never give it up. A similar situation can be observed with the web and ads. People just want their fix of entertainment even if it means that they are being tracked, hacked and used. And it's never going to change.

liotier 11y ago

Users realize they can fight sensory pollution - advertiser outrage ensues... The arms race rages on !

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

criddell 11y ago

Tracking, it's been argued, is good because it allows more relevant ads to be served. I've been giving Google huge amounts of data about me and my life for almost 20 years and the ads are still terrible. I spend thousands of dollars every year at Amazon and their recommendation engine doesn't do much better. How much more do advertisers need to know about me before ads served online are significantly more relevant than the ads I see in People magazine at the doctor's office? At this point, I'm super skeptical about the ad business. Advertisements don't really bother me that much, but I'm becoming less comfortable with being tracked. I would love to see a study that compares the costs of tracking with the added value of tracking and see who pays those costs and who benefits from the value.

electricblue 11y ago
Google benefits, the costs are negligible compared to the revenue they get. Its the entire business model. The problem for content creators is I can't think of much written content that i'm willing to pay a subscription fee for. I doubt I am alone in this.
- criddell 11y ago
  > the costs are negligible The costs are not negligible. Tracking scripts use a lot of bandwidth and (on mobile) battery power.
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    The costs are negligible for Google. See here: https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html The major stated revenue costs seem to be traffic acquisition costs (payouts for YouTube and the like, I imagine). Bandwidth is probably a minor issue - anyway they are making 60% profits on revenues of $66 billion a year.
  - Spivak 11y ago
    Exactly, just because the cost is distributed doesn't mean it's not being paid in one form or another. If ad networks actually had to pay the cost, say $10/GB of traffic they served to mobile devices, ads would be lighter and far less spammy.

hiou 11y ago

Since we're running full steam ahead in correlation, I'll throw in that around 2012 was when Facebook started displaying ads.

bsder 11y ago

I suspect that the problem is that advertising is chasing increasingly fewer fixed dollars. Consequently, it has had to get more and more aggressive to have any impact. Most people are spending at their limits. They have fixed budgets on which to spend things. So, to change their behavior, you have to apply a huge bat to get to even the 0.1% you can actually change. Unfortunately, that offends the 99.9%. There is a reason why advertisers target new mothers the most. It's the single time when people's habits get completely disrupted and can be rearranged.

fossuser 11y ago

I think it's kind of specious to claim that the reason ad blocking software is more common now is because websites started ignoring Do Not Track. Most people who use the internet don't know anything about this. It probably just took a while for there to be enough 'friends good with computers' who knew about ad blocking and installed the plugins for their family and friends. That kind of knowledge takes a bit to penetrate. Once people see it works they keep using it because a web without ads is objectively better for the individual user (ignoring what might happen if ad revenue was no longer viable to fund the free services everyone uses).

roymurdock 11y ago

The author says that we, as consumers, need to "engage" advertisers because they have power (to do what?), and because we all have a stake in each other's success. He offers this explanation: The only way engagement will work is through tools that are ours, and we control: tools that give us scale — like a handshake gives us scale. What engages us with the Washington Post should also engage us with Verge and Huffpo. What engages us with Mercedes should also engage us with a Ford dealer or a shoe store. Does anyone know what he is talking about here? I re-read the article 2 or 3 times and skimmed the linked article in an attempt to figure out what part scale plays in a handshake. If anything, a handshake is anti-scale because its a personal gesture that you can only do with one other person at a time. But the author says that engagement should scale across all verticals (automakers, shoe stores) and all brands (Huffington Post, Verge). Seems like an inherent contradiction. Am I parsing his meaning/terminology incorrectly? Also, why do a plurality of smart people involved in the ad industry keep pushing for us, the consumers, to "help marketers think past abuse and coercion"? Advertisers have had plenty of time to think and reflect upon their business model. They have chosen to disrespect us, violate our privacy, and chase short-term profits at the expense of long-term customer satisfaction. Now they are receiving their just desserts because people hate they way they have been treated. The sites that host these ads are also guilty by proxy because they know exactly what they are doing. What is there to talk about/negotiate in this situation?

forgottenpass 11y ago
What is there to talk about/negotiate in this situation? Nothing; we're being conned. They know what they want, they know nobody else wants that, so they disingenuously play to human nature. By stating that they should be engaged with directly, they attempt to make blocking seem like an unreasonable rejection of working with them. They have no interest in cooperating, so it's just manipulative. It's the same exact hustle we've seen with whistleblowers (and protesters) time and time again for ages. Some blowhard says that they're for reform, and support the concept of whistleblowing in general. But in this one specific case, the whistle-blowing just wasn't done right, and there are certainly more-effective routes to that reform, with less collaterally damage that should have been used instead. Nah, that's just someone that exists to make sure the status quo doesn't change. Sorta related, about the NSA/ATT relationship: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7325100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7325100

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

I agree and I like the way this author words the "fight". It has always baffled me how an entire industry can build up around the trust system because in the end that's what the majority of online advertisement is. You send me data, my screen chooses what to display.

imagex 11y ago

There's a strange note of entitlement that seems to pop up whenever discussions about ad blocking arise. It smacks of the piracy argument, "if producers didn't make it so difficult to consume the content, I wouldn't pirate it." The argument isn't about whether or not it's theft, so much as whether or not consumers agree with the method and constraints on the intersection between distribution and consumption. In the case of 'free' content on the web: site 'owners' create and serve content, often via paid servers with labor overhead in the form of creation, curation, programming infrastructure/support, sysadmins, and so forth. The server sits in one or more datacenters, waiting for requests. Let's use the house metaphor: say I create a website, www.thisismyhouse.com and you like the content, so you visit my (open) house. My house has certain conventions, social compacts, if you will. You don't enter without some sense that there are obligations on both sides: if I am an irritating host, you don't stay and eat my food, you leave. If you are an irritating guest, you are escorted out. At no time in the physical world is there a situation where you can use technology to mute the host while still eating the food (aside from <insert dated in-laws joke here> ). "Oho!" someone exclaims, "I spent fuel and time" (internet bandwidth) "to visit your house! This cost me (unit of value) too!" So we agree that both sides have a monetary/value stake in this transaction. But there are rules, folks. The content isn't free and never was. Just because you can line up at the buffet and filter out the environment until it meets your requirements through technology doesn't mean that you have an ongoing right to keep visiting (consuming). Free content sites are like trialware: you visit, decide if you like it, then pay if you keep using it, and the price is set by the author (ads, subscriptions, you name it). If you don't like the price, you don't get to keep eating your fill. I'm not a fan of ads, but I accept them as by and large the price of admission to the content I like. There are plenty of ways to get around tracking without fully blocking ads, so that doesn't really concern me). If the ads are just too much, I go elsewhere. How complicated is that?

mgalka 11y ago

Reminds me of the time when everyone (myself included) felt entitled to free MP3's, and then got pissed when the record companies disagreed. A boycott is when you abstain from transacting. Ad blockers are not a boycott, they're just a legal way of stealing someone else's work.