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Is anyone else concerned about the possibility that if ad blocking on the web becomes widespread enough, we will end up with more ads baked into the content its

Is anyone else concerned about the possibility that if ad blocking on the web becomes widespread enough, we will end up with more ads baked into the content itself? Native advertising, ads burned into images, ads burned in the middle of videos? Thinking selfishly, I would much prefer the status quo, where I can block most ads, but the majority of consumers don't do it. Current ad blocking tech is fine, I'm afraid this could become an arms race.

BrendanEich 11y ago
Native ads can be, and are today, blocked. Consider those ugly Taboola and Outbrain octoboxes with parasite pictures at the bottom of too many news stories these days. Those are just img in div HTML. But adblockers remove them with HTML rules (Brave will too). In general, you can Greasemonkey anything. Tracker-less first party native ads may be harder to match, but most sites would need tracking to aggregate audiences, to get better ads and revenue, so third party native is on the rise. And it is easy to block.
- tomcam 11y ago
  Huge fan of Brendan, but this did not really address parent's point--which I think is valid, and unanswered. Most people don't use Greasemonkey-propelled solutions. I wonder if the answer is that highly targeted ads tend to work. When I'm on the guitar subreddit it'd be fine for me to see ads from Fender. And part of what I seek when I read a guitar magazine is ads, because they alert me to things that I sometimes don't find out about any other way. I also like the idea of paying to block ads that aren't relevant to me. I believe in a free market and totally understand that things have to be paid for. Sometimes ads are the answer, but I find many of the interstitials to be irrelevant and sometimes they slow the site down unacceptably. Would be willing to pay for this experience not to happen.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    We can't really have both ad relevance (outside the local context) and privacy. One requires the advertiser know things about me I personally have no desire for them to know. > Would be willing to pay for this experience not to happen. I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I'm honestly not willing to pay for that. Fact is, I use adblock right now, but if I couldn't use adblock on some sites I'd simply stop visiting them. I despise the ad-filled experience. I'm with the current top post and despise the idea of being constantly manipulated into buying things I do not need. If there were less ad overall on the internet, I wouldn't care about blocking them, but that's tragedy of the commons for you.
- tomcam 11y ago
  Huge fan of Brendan, but this did not really address parent's point--which I think is valid, and unanswered. Most people don't use Greasemonkey-propelled solutions. I wonder if the answer is that highly targeted ads tend to work. When I'm on the guitar subreddit it'd be fine for me to see ads from Fender. And part of what I seek when I read a guitar magazine is ads, because they alert me to things that I sometimes don't find out about any other way. I also like the idea of paying to block ads that aren't relevant to me. I believe in a free market and totally understand that things have to be paid for. Sometimes ads are the answer, but I find many of the interstitials to be irrelevant and sometimes they slow the site down unacceptably. Would be willing to pay for this experience not to happen.
- such_a_casual 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure the parent is talking about burning advertisements into the content, where instead of having separate images (content images, and ad images), they are the same images with advertisements baked into the content images, videos, etc.
rorykoehler 11y ago
It was always like that. Even when we had to buy magazines. Go check out any hobbiest magazine (bikes, cameras etc etc) and they are ram packed full of ads.... um I mean reviews. You're right, there will be new solutions to combat nefarious advertising. For example I can already imagine a plugin which uses ML to identify ads and block the content.... No more videos with ads in the middle.

BrendanEich 11y ago

Native ads can be, and are today, blocked. Consider those ugly Taboola and Outbrain octoboxes with parasite pictures at the bottom of too many news stories these days. Those are just img in div HTML. But adblockers remove them with HTML rules (Brave will too). In general, you can Greasemonkey anything. Tracker-less first party native ads may be harder to match, but most sites would need tracking to aggregate audiences, to get better ads and revenue, so third party native is on the rise. And it is easy to block.

tomcam 11y ago
Huge fan of Brendan, but this did not really address parent's point--which I think is valid, and unanswered. Most people don't use Greasemonkey-propelled solutions. I wonder if the answer is that highly targeted ads tend to work. When I'm on the guitar subreddit it'd be fine for me to see ads from Fender. And part of what I seek when I read a guitar magazine is ads, because they alert me to things that I sometimes don't find out about any other way. I also like the idea of paying to block ads that aren't relevant to me. I believe in a free market and totally understand that things have to be paid for. Sometimes ads are the answer, but I find many of the interstitials to be irrelevant and sometimes they slow the site down unacceptably. Would be willing to pay for this experience not to happen.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  We can't really have both ad relevance (outside the local context) and privacy. One requires the advertiser know things about me I personally have no desire for them to know. > Would be willing to pay for this experience not to happen. I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I'm honestly not willing to pay for that. Fact is, I use adblock right now, but if I couldn't use adblock on some sites I'd simply stop visiting them. I despise the ad-filled experience. I'm with the current top post and despise the idea of being constantly manipulated into buying things I do not need. If there were less ad overall on the internet, I wouldn't care about blocking them, but that's tragedy of the commons for you.
tomcam 11y ago
Huge fan of Brendan, but this did not really address parent's point--which I think is valid, and unanswered. Most people don't use Greasemonkey-propelled solutions. I wonder if the answer is that highly targeted ads tend to work. When I'm on the guitar subreddit it'd be fine for me to see ads from Fender. And part of what I seek when I read a guitar magazine is ads, because they alert me to things that I sometimes don't find out about any other way. I also like the idea of paying to block ads that aren't relevant to me. I believe in a free market and totally understand that things have to be paid for. Sometimes ads are the answer, but I find many of the interstitials to be irrelevant and sometimes they slow the site down unacceptably. Would be willing to pay for this experience not to happen.
such_a_casual 11y ago
I'm pretty sure the parent is talking about burning advertisements into the content, where instead of having separate images (content images, and ad images), they are the same images with advertisements baked into the content images, videos, etc.

rorykoehler 11y ago

It was always like that. Even when we had to buy magazines. Go check out any hobbiest magazine (bikes, cameras etc etc) and they are ram packed full of ads.... um I mean reviews. You're right, there will be new solutions to combat nefarious advertising. For example I can already imagine a plugin which uses ML to identify ads and block the content.... No more videos with ads in the middle.