3 ms·

I've been saying for years that blockers just remove the good guys. What's the point in trying to make a safe, non-tracking, curated ad network when you will j

I've been saying for years that blockers just remove the good guys. What's the point in trying to make a safe, non-tracking, curated ad network when you will just be blocked by everyone anyway? All adblockers do its turn the game into a race to the bottom. Whoever can get the most invasive ads past the most blockers is the winner. Any company that isn't willing to play dirty will be left behind. Content creators won't push for the good guys because they need money, ad networks are between a rock and a hard-place, and users will say they want "nice" ad networks while simultaneously blocking all ads regardless of where they come from (and will fight against things like the "allow acceptable ads" checkbox in adblock)

rockdoe 11y ago
I think you just described why Mozilla was pushing for Tracking Protection (blocking only "bad" ads) and didn't do Brave.
- Klathmon 11y ago
  even widespread Tracking Protection isn't the answer IMO. I personally want to be tracked on some things. I want ads that are relevant to me instead of ads that cater to the lowest common denominator. I want websites to be able to view my usage and cater to my wants/needs without me having to spend time trying to fill out surveys on how i use their service (and probably remember things wrong), I want automated recommendations for things that i might like without me having to spend hours curating my own content. I don't want invasive 3rd parties getting ahold of my information, "push" advertising like cold-calls, emails, push notifications, or physical mail, and i don't want sensitive information being collected and shared. Sadly nobody ever tries to make that distinction, it's always "everything" or "nothing".
  - VLM 11y ago
    I would theorize what you're observing is incompetent push is indistinguishable from incompetent pull, at least WRT resulting annoyance level. Also a lot of markets are a confuse-opoly. Go ahead, help me out and find the technically best tire for peak all season performance (not worried about longest lasting tread, not worried about cost, not worried about mileage, just best all weather performance on a skidpad). Doesn't matter what car I have or what you search for. The market is dead, pure confuse-opoly, may as well give up and use astrology. I'm a Pisces if that helps more than knowing what model car I have. Likewise look at pre-smartphone cell phone market. You can not have ads worth anything if the underlying market is pure nonsense BS, so vast segments of the economy will have to be categorically excluded, and they have advertising money to spend... Some of the biggest marketing budgets are in the least healthy markets...
lmm 11y ago
Unfortunately the same pressures apply on the user side too. Whoever makes the most aggressive adblocker wins the users, and at the same time makes it worse for anyone who isn't using their adblocker.
tomjen3 11y ago
All this means is that ad-blockers will have to add anti-anti-ad-blocking technology (you can already download anti-anti-ad blocking extensions to chrome), at which point it is a race to the bottom.

rockdoe 11y ago

I think you just described why Mozilla was pushing for Tracking Protection (blocking only "bad" ads) and didn't do Brave.

Klathmon 11y ago
even widespread Tracking Protection isn't the answer IMO. I personally want to be tracked on some things. I want ads that are relevant to me instead of ads that cater to the lowest common denominator. I want websites to be able to view my usage and cater to my wants/needs without me having to spend time trying to fill out surveys on how i use their service (and probably remember things wrong), I want automated recommendations for things that i might like without me having to spend hours curating my own content. I don't want invasive 3rd parties getting ahold of my information, "push" advertising like cold-calls, emails, push notifications, or physical mail, and i don't want sensitive information being collected and shared. Sadly nobody ever tries to make that distinction, it's always "everything" or "nothing".
- VLM 11y ago
  I would theorize what you're observing is incompetent push is indistinguishable from incompetent pull, at least WRT resulting annoyance level. Also a lot of markets are a confuse-opoly. Go ahead, help me out and find the technically best tire for peak all season performance (not worried about longest lasting tread, not worried about cost, not worried about mileage, just best all weather performance on a skidpad). Doesn't matter what car I have or what you search for. The market is dead, pure confuse-opoly, may as well give up and use astrology. I'm a Pisces if that helps more than knowing what model car I have. Likewise look at pre-smartphone cell phone market. You can not have ads worth anything if the underlying market is pure nonsense BS, so vast segments of the economy will have to be categorically excluded, and they have advertising money to spend... Some of the biggest marketing budgets are in the least healthy markets...

lmm 11y ago

Unfortunately the same pressures apply on the user side too. Whoever makes the most aggressive adblocker wins the users, and at the same time makes it worse for anyone who isn't using their adblocker.

tomjen3 11y ago

All this means is that ad-blockers will have to add anti-anti-ad-blocking technology (you can already download anti-anti-ad blocking extensions to chrome), at which point it is a race to the bottom.