7 ms·

Sites that block adblockers seem to be suffering

imh 11y ago
The argument is that traffic is down. I wonder the impact it had on revenue.
- ComteDeLaFere 11y ago
  I don't see how it had an impact on revenue if ads weren't displaying, which would mean that this article is missing a key point. Not sure that each of these down-slope ranking charts are associated with an equivalent down-slope revenue chart.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Because some people don't use adblockers as a binary setting. You can choose which ads to block, for example blocking full page ads while allowing banner ads to let be. Blocking users outright is also counter productive you piss them off instead of giving them a reason to want to support you. Not to mention is that loss of users impacts another important revenue source for many sites other than just ad networks and that is sponsored content, referrals and syndication. If I'm running a full out adblock and can't access your content I can't read sponsored content, and I can't share your content with others that might not be running adblock, or do and will be more inclined to disable it, or to even pay for that content through other means. Boycotting rarely works, and boycotting your customers is pretty much the dumbest move any business can make.
    - elcapitan 11y ago
      With the site being not accessible for some part of the readers (maybe high-value, high social media impact individuals), the sites could be losing revenue because less links are created (which again would attract a lot of non-adblocker visitors).
      - dogma1138 11y ago
        Yes that's why I said if I can't read it I can't link it. An interesting study might be actually using platforms like HN I think "wired" is/was blocking adblcokers but might be an interesting experiment of getting like 10-20 sites and checking the amount of submissions to HN from those sites before and after they implemented their boycott policy.
        endemic 11y ago
        I snooped around to figure out a way to bypass Wired's block (and was successful), but in the end I just don't care about their content. It has definitely fallen off the radar for me.
  - basch 11y ago
    if a person doesnt see an ad, but has reach on facebook and shares the story, it can lead to much more ad revenue than lost on letting that one person read the story with their ad blocker enabled. it's the same reason twitter started turning off ads for influential people.
  - jkyle 11y ago
    > I don't see how it had an impact on revenue if ads weren't displaying 1. browsing hacker news sees interesting article, uses ad block. 2. posts link to Facebook 3. link gets propagated across Facebook and clicked by 1000's who do not use ad block 4. x1000's You can think of ad block users like carriers. They show no symptoms, but could be the man vector for distribution of your content. So they may have a value that can't be measured in ad clicks. The interesting question is if they saw a subsequent fall in ad revenue indicating a correlation between ad block users and more ad revenue.
- tremon 11y ago
  True, that would be much more interesting. But it's unlikely that the sites are willing to share that data publicly, especially since they have already decided that the world is a hostile place.
oarsinsync 11y ago
Out of five sites profiled, only one actually shows any correlation between blocking users using adblockers and having a decrease in traffic. The others just continued a pre-existing trend.
- blowski 11y ago
  It looks very much like wishful thinking on the part of the author.
  - lucb1e 11y ago
    The article itself seems to be written alright though, it's the headline that seems in conflict with the data.
screwyouforbes 11y ago
Forbes was essentially dead to me after they blocked their articles if it detected an ad blocker.
- sogen 11y ago
  Agreed, I even disabled the ad blocker but couldn't get the site to load (still got stuck in the warning page)
  - faitswulff 11y ago
    Similarly, I added Wired to a whitelist, but they still showed me the anti-adblocking modal - possibly due to my hosts file. Figuring out what caused it was more trouble than it was worth, so I just don't read Wired anymore.
    - amelius 11y ago
      You can always open such content in an incognito tab, to disable the adblocker completely.
- zodPod 11y ago
  Agreed. Similarly, I stopped even bothering with links to Wired articles after they started too.
- HardDaysKnight 11y ago
  Yes, I never go to Forbes anymore.
- thoughtsimple 11y ago
  It works out well for me. Forbes blocking me is kind of a negative reinforcement technique that reminds me that their content is mostly click-bait shit anyway. I used to go to their site, try to read their content and leave in disgust. Now I seem to remember not to click on their links. Saves time.
make3 11y ago
For those using greasemonkey and its copies on other browsers, here's an adblock blocker bypasser that works great https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer
- chdsbd 11y ago
  This is also available as a third-party filter for uBlock. No greasemonkey necessary.
homulilly 11y ago
My own response to sites adblocking adblockers has just been to stop visiting those sites.
- swasheck 11y ago
  yep. i dont even bother visiting links to wired articles anymore
  - jxramos 11y ago
    Me too, and I'm trying to figure now if its a matter of laziness or that the content wasn't juicy enough for me to lower my ad blocking defenses.
    - zodPod 11y ago
      I'd guess the latter. Wired has become pretty lame the last several years. I loved it as a kid but it's just crap now anyway. Mostly just top 500 things to buy lists anyway.
  - pcora 11y ago
    I tend to do the same. Specially since I am only using Firefox's tracking protection. I don't mind seeing adds. So I am not blocking ads, just trackers. Figure out a way to show me the adds and I won't mind. Back in 97, webmasters would upload ad.gif and host. Come up with a way to track those and problem solved.
- tdb7893 11y ago
  My problem is that I love free things. Instead of blocking ads if I go to a website which has ads I don't like then it's just forever dead to me and I block it. I get the internet that I want and the websites I like get paid. I just browse with noscript and all that stuff if I don't want to be tracked but if I'm just going on netflix and facebook it's not a big deal to me. Edit: obviously I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this but it works for me pretty well and I'm happy to contribute revenue to the sites that I enjoy
AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
In all cases the warnings presented to the user instructed them to whitelist the site in their adblocker – or go away. And the answer from the visitors seems to be clear: we'll go away.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  They may well not give a damn. Hell, they might be happy. If traffic numbers are down and ad revenue is stable- guess what, lower operating costs & higher margin.
  - brainfire 11y ago
    Are scalable web hosting costs really a significant portion of the operating costs of most news publishers with websites? Additionally, losing visitors means losing the links they share on social media, so ad revenue may not be stable either (assuming adblocking users' links are visited by non-adblocking users.)
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      looking at some numbers people are starting to wisen up and chances of getting viral are diminishing as the average viewer's immune system reacts to clickbaits. as they learn views are money and share are worthwhile, they start thinking twice before sharing and liking. growing an audience today is already insanely harder than compared 5 years ago and the situation looks like it's only gonna get worse.
  - spriggan3 11y ago
    > If traffic numbers are down and ad revenue is stable- guess what, lower operating costs & higher margin. Guess what ad-block users also share articles with their friends that might not use ad-blockers ... I doubt blocking people with ad-blockers will help these sites on the long run.
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    That's probably how they think. But that is a mistake, nearly all the media I costume is as a result of a link on Facebook, reddit or Twitter that somebody has shared. It isn't important if the original poster has seen the ads, but whether how many people follow it.
tombrossman 11y ago
Sites that detect ad-blocker usage have bigger problems to worry about, at least here in Europe. I haven't seen this reported in the media yet but here is a Twitter message from privacy researcher Alexander Hanff with photos of an official letter confirming that detecting ad-blocker usage client-side is illegal in the EU. https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722861362607747072 https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722861362607747072 Here's his initial message from yesterday, kicking off the thread: https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722506381451010048 https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722506381451010048 I've got my popcorn ready and I'm waiting for what may be a very amusing discussion between publishers, advertisers, and lawyers in various European countries. Fascinating, regardless of which side of the debate you are on.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- bpodgursky 11y ago
  European lawmaking is beholden to newspapers, based on the trouble Google has been going through with linking and citations, so I would be truly shocked if this came to anything.
  - awakeasleep 11y ago
    This is not a meaningful summary of the complexities of the lawmaking process of a multinational political entity.
Eerie 11y ago
Sites that block adblockers successfully forced me to... install a blacklisting script blocker.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
The interesting question is not Alexa counts but has their revenue changed. In particular what is their revenue per 1000 page views that are post ad-blocker. If they stop getting traffic that wasn't going to click then its a net win for them, they don't use the network resources serving up pages to people who will never click on an ad.
- hayksaakian 11y ago
  Network resources are usually the cheapest part of their operation. They'd have to fire humans to improve their margins.
- SixSigma 11y ago
  > In particular what is their revenue per 1000 page views that are post ad-blocker A dangerous metric. If it was $10 per 1000 before and $15 per 1000 it might look good. Except if it's on 10,000 then ($100) vs 2,000 now ($30)
return0 11y ago
It's OK to shame me for using adblock and asking to whitelist you, but please, please do not thank me for doing so. It betrays you 're tracking my every step and you re acting like a strict nanny.
zzzcpan 11y ago
They are probably going to stop blocking adblockers eventually. Since their brands weaken, fewer users are sharing links, search engine positions weaken, etc. All of which has a long term impact on their revenue. More interesting is how are they going to recover?
fapjacks 11y ago
Uh yeah, no shit.
slackstation 11y ago
This article needs more data points to be significant. There are reasons other than ad blocking that could be causing that effect.
pink_dinner 11y ago
Why bother having ads anymore? I would just make an entire article or video one big advertisement for a product I am trying to sell. This is the next logical step for ads..and all of the people that think they have some sort of power right now, will be surprised when there is truly no way to block it in a few years. Because popular sites need to make money to pay for hosting and when enough of them do this, you won't really be able to ignore it all. Other alternatives might include major paywalls for content (if it gets bad enough) or a tech-savvy advertisement company that gets around these ad blockers (I actually have lots of good ideas that would work and might start a company myself). The same thing happened with software. Companies were tired of fighting piracy, so they made everything in the 'cloud'. I used to sell software and got tired of piracy. When I just ignored it, my sales would go down to almost nothing. The issue just isn't the copying of software. It's that these sites also start ranking higher than my own in Google and many people will get to the counterfeit copy first. Price never mattered. I could charge 99 cents and the piracy would stay pretty consistent. I would also get people contacting me up trying to sue me because they downloaded an illegal copy, thought it was mine, and they got a virus/lost data. Of course they have no real basis for a case, but the time and effort involved in answering the inquiries was a huge waste of time. Now, my customers don't even get to have a copy of it. They get to rent it for a fee every month (all hosted on our servers). It's great for me, but not for software freedom. It's really the only way to survive these days. The app markets are pretty dismal as well. The only apps actually making a profit are the ones that are in the top 5. The rest are fighting for scraps. It's much better to give away your app for free as part of a paid, monthly service. The price of the app alone really can't be used to sustain a business. The sad thing is that the end result of all of this is the concentration of wealth to fewer, large and wealthy companies. Small companies can't handle the loss in revenue and it will mean less power for all of us. You are actually contributing to further wealth inequality and ironically, trying to stop it at the same time.
michaelbuddy 11y ago
The ad block blocker on Wired.com has been giving me trouble on my Surface Pro, which I've done nothing to. In fact, I'm not even running a version of the browser which has ad block. And opening an article on Wired then scrolling down the site lectures me with a full screen overlay and copy like "Here's the thing..." It's ridiculous. I've stopped going to the site. Instead I'm checking slashgear and subreddits.
brwnll 11y ago
Don't most ad blockers also block third party trackers? I know uBlock Origin blocks Google Analytics for example. I don't know Alexa's fallback/tracking methods, but couldn't these be an indicator of adoption rate of ad blockers, as these charts are not precisely an indicator of traffic, but specifically a measure of trackable traffic.
pm24601 11y ago
I had problems with these sites even though I wasn't using an adblocker, I just didn't have Flash installed.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
I suspect there is a hidden variable here: the degree to which management is embracing "new rules". All of these declines seem to have started before ad-blocking-blocking. All of the development effort and management energy that went into blocking didn't go into content or marketing. A company who is losing the content game is exactly the kind of company who would try to win through content controls. And in the case of the Washington Post, the reason they only "experimented" is because Jeff Bezos is not that kind of thinker. He likes change, and doesn't mind reorienting around new rules. If anything he sees them as opportunities. These choices don't happen in a vacuum. They look like a proxy for cultural issues to me.
Overtonwindow 11y ago
When I am confronted by an anti-ad block website, I go away, or I find a way around it. Viewing ads does not bother me. Viewing obtrusive advertisements, and those ridiculous scripts that pull you out of the site and into the App Store, pop ups, auto play videos, audio, and every other intrusive, ridiculous advertisement, is what I hate. Ads don't bother me, websites that act like assholes bother me.

imh 11y ago

The argument is that traffic is down. I wonder the impact it had on revenue.

ComteDeLaFere 11y ago
I don't see how it had an impact on revenue if ads weren't displaying, which would mean that this article is missing a key point. Not sure that each of these down-slope ranking charts are associated with an equivalent down-slope revenue chart.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Because some people don't use adblockers as a binary setting. You can choose which ads to block, for example blocking full page ads while allowing banner ads to let be. Blocking users outright is also counter productive you piss them off instead of giving them a reason to want to support you. Not to mention is that loss of users impacts another important revenue source for many sites other than just ad networks and that is sponsored content, referrals and syndication. If I'm running a full out adblock and can't access your content I can't read sponsored content, and I can't share your content with others that might not be running adblock, or do and will be more inclined to disable it, or to even pay for that content through other means. Boycotting rarely works, and boycotting your customers is pretty much the dumbest move any business can make.
  - elcapitan 11y ago
    With the site being not accessible for some part of the readers (maybe high-value, high social media impact individuals), the sites could be losing revenue because less links are created (which again would attract a lot of non-adblocker visitors).
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Yes that's why I said if I can't read it I can't link it. An interesting study might be actually using platforms like HN I think "wired" is/was blocking adblcokers but might be an interesting experiment of getting like 10-20 sites and checking the amount of submissions to HN from those sites before and after they implemented their boycott policy.
      - endemic 11y ago
        I snooped around to figure out a way to bypass Wired's block (and was successful), but in the end I just don't care about their content. It has definitely fallen off the radar for me.
- basch 11y ago
  if a person doesnt see an ad, but has reach on facebook and shares the story, it can lead to much more ad revenue than lost on letting that one person read the story with their ad blocker enabled. it's the same reason twitter started turning off ads for influential people.
- jkyle 11y ago
  > I don't see how it had an impact on revenue if ads weren't displaying 1. browsing hacker news sees interesting article, uses ad block. 2. posts link to Facebook 3. link gets propagated across Facebook and clicked by 1000's who do not use ad block 4. x1000's You can think of ad block users like carriers. They show no symptoms, but could be the man vector for distribution of your content. So they may have a value that can't be measured in ad clicks. The interesting question is if they saw a subsequent fall in ad revenue indicating a correlation between ad block users and more ad revenue.
tremon 11y ago
True, that would be much more interesting. But it's unlikely that the sites are willing to share that data publicly, especially since they have already decided that the world is a hostile place.

Out of five sites profiled, only one actually shows any correlation between blocking users using adblockers and having a decrease in traffic. The others just continued a pre-existing trend.

blowski 11y ago
It looks very much like wishful thinking on the part of the author.
- lucb1e 11y ago
  The article itself seems to be written alright though, it's the headline that seems in conflict with the data.

screwyouforbes 11y ago

Forbes was essentially dead to me after they blocked their articles if it detected an ad blocker.

sogen 11y ago
Agreed, I even disabled the ad blocker but couldn't get the site to load (still got stuck in the warning page)
- faitswulff 11y ago
  Similarly, I added Wired to a whitelist, but they still showed me the anti-adblocking modal - possibly due to my hosts file. Figuring out what caused it was more trouble than it was worth, so I just don't read Wired anymore.
  - amelius 11y ago
    You can always open such content in an incognito tab, to disable the adblocker completely.
zodPod 11y ago
Agreed. Similarly, I stopped even bothering with links to Wired articles after they started too.
HardDaysKnight 11y ago
Yes, I never go to Forbes anymore.
thoughtsimple 11y ago
It works out well for me. Forbes blocking me is kind of a negative reinforcement technique that reminds me that their content is mostly click-bait shit anyway. I used to go to their site, try to read their content and leave in disgust. Now I seem to remember not to click on their links. Saves time.

make3 11y ago

For those using greasemonkey and its copies on other browsers, here's an adblock blocker bypasser that works great https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer

chdsbd 11y ago
This is also available as a third-party filter for uBlock. No greasemonkey necessary.

homulilly 11y ago

My own response to sites adblocking adblockers has just been to stop visiting those sites.

swasheck 11y ago
yep. i dont even bother visiting links to wired articles anymore
- jxramos 11y ago
  Me too, and I'm trying to figure now if its a matter of laziness or that the content wasn't juicy enough for me to lower my ad blocking defenses.
  - zodPod 11y ago
    I'd guess the latter. Wired has become pretty lame the last several years. I loved it as a kid but it's just crap now anyway. Mostly just top 500 things to buy lists anyway.
- pcora 11y ago
  I tend to do the same. Specially since I am only using Firefox's tracking protection. I don't mind seeing adds. So I am not blocking ads, just trackers. Figure out a way to show me the adds and I won't mind. Back in 97, webmasters would upload ad.gif and host. Come up with a way to track those and problem solved.
tdb7893 11y ago
My problem is that I love free things. Instead of blocking ads if I go to a website which has ads I don't like then it's just forever dead to me and I block it. I get the internet that I want and the websites I like get paid. I just browse with noscript and all that stuff if I don't want to be tracked but if I'm just going on netflix and facebook it's not a big deal to me. Edit: obviously I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this but it works for me pretty well and I'm happy to contribute revenue to the sites that I enjoy

AdmiralAsshat 11y ago

In all cases the warnings presented to the user instructed them to whitelist the site in their adblocker – or go away. And the answer from the visitors seems to be clear: we'll go away.

sliverstorm 11y ago
They may well not give a damn. Hell, they might be happy. If traffic numbers are down and ad revenue is stable- guess what, lower operating costs & higher margin.
- brainfire 11y ago
  Are scalable web hosting costs really a significant portion of the operating costs of most news publishers with websites? Additionally, losing visitors means losing the links they share on social media, so ad revenue may not be stable either (assuming adblocking users' links are visited by non-adblocking users.)
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    looking at some numbers people are starting to wisen up and chances of getting viral are diminishing as the average viewer's immune system reacts to clickbaits. as they learn views are money and share are worthwhile, they start thinking twice before sharing and liking. growing an audience today is already insanely harder than compared 5 years ago and the situation looks like it's only gonna get worse.
- spriggan3 11y ago
  > If traffic numbers are down and ad revenue is stable- guess what, lower operating costs & higher margin. Guess what ad-block users also share articles with their friends that might not use ad-blockers ... I doubt blocking people with ad-blockers will help these sites on the long run.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  That's probably how they think. But that is a mistake, nearly all the media I costume is as a result of a link on Facebook, reddit or Twitter that somebody has shared. It isn't important if the original poster has seen the ads, but whether how many people follow it.

tombrossman 11y ago

Sites that detect ad-blocker usage have bigger problems to worry about, at least here in Europe. I haven't seen this reported in the media yet but here is a Twitter message from privacy researcher Alexander Hanff with photos of an official letter confirming that detecting ad-blocker usage client-side is illegal in the EU. https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722861362607747072 https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722861362607747072 Here's his initial message from yesterday, kicking off the thread: https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722506381451010048 https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722506381451010048 I've got my popcorn ready and I'm waiting for what may be a very amusing discussion between publishers, advertisers, and lawyers in various European countries. Fascinating, regardless of which side of the debate you are on.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
bpodgursky 11y ago
European lawmaking is beholden to newspapers, based on the trouble Google has been going through with linking and citations, so I would be truly shocked if this came to anything.
- awakeasleep 11y ago
  This is not a meaningful summary of the complexities of the lawmaking process of a multinational political entity.

Eerie 11y ago

Sites that block adblockers successfully forced me to... install a blacklisting script blocker.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

The interesting question is not Alexa counts but has their revenue changed. In particular what is their revenue per 1000 page views that are post ad-blocker. If they stop getting traffic that wasn't going to click then its a net win for them, they don't use the network resources serving up pages to people who will never click on an ad.

hayksaakian 11y ago
Network resources are usually the cheapest part of their operation. They'd have to fire humans to improve their margins.
SixSigma 11y ago
> In particular what is their revenue per 1000 page views that are post ad-blocker A dangerous metric. If it was $10 per 1000 before and $15 per 1000 it might look good. Except if it's on 10,000 then ($100) vs 2,000 now ($30)

return0 11y ago

It's OK to shame me for using adblock and asking to whitelist you, but please, please do not thank me for doing so. It betrays you 're tracking my every step and you re acting like a strict nanny.

zzzcpan 11y ago

They are probably going to stop blocking adblockers eventually. Since their brands weaken, fewer users are sharing links, search engine positions weaken, etc. All of which has a long term impact on their revenue. More interesting is how are they going to recover?

fapjacks 11y ago

Uh yeah, no shit.

slackstation 11y ago

This article needs more data points to be significant. There are reasons other than ad blocking that could be causing that effect.

pink_dinner 11y ago

Why bother having ads anymore? I would just make an entire article or video one big advertisement for a product I am trying to sell. This is the next logical step for ads..and all of the people that think they have some sort of power right now, will be surprised when there is truly no way to block it in a few years. Because popular sites need to make money to pay for hosting and when enough of them do this, you won't really be able to ignore it all. Other alternatives might include major paywalls for content (if it gets bad enough) or a tech-savvy advertisement company that gets around these ad blockers (I actually have lots of good ideas that would work and might start a company myself). The same thing happened with software. Companies were tired of fighting piracy, so they made everything in the 'cloud'. I used to sell software and got tired of piracy. When I just ignored it, my sales would go down to almost nothing. The issue just isn't the copying of software. It's that these sites also start ranking higher than my own in Google and many people will get to the counterfeit copy first. Price never mattered. I could charge 99 cents and the piracy would stay pretty consistent. I would also get people contacting me up trying to sue me because they downloaded an illegal copy, thought it was mine, and they got a virus/lost data. Of course they have no real basis for a case, but the time and effort involved in answering the inquiries was a huge waste of time. Now, my customers don't even get to have a copy of it. They get to rent it for a fee every month (all hosted on our servers). It's great for me, but not for software freedom. It's really the only way to survive these days. The app markets are pretty dismal as well. The only apps actually making a profit are the ones that are in the top 5. The rest are fighting for scraps. It's much better to give away your app for free as part of a paid, monthly service. The price of the app alone really can't be used to sustain a business. The sad thing is that the end result of all of this is the concentration of wealth to fewer, large and wealthy companies. Small companies can't handle the loss in revenue and it will mean less power for all of us. You are actually contributing to further wealth inequality and ironically, trying to stop it at the same time.

michaelbuddy 11y ago

The ad block blocker on Wired.com has been giving me trouble on my Surface Pro, which I've done nothing to. In fact, I'm not even running a version of the browser which has ad block. And opening an article on Wired then scrolling down the site lectures me with a full screen overlay and copy like "Here's the thing..." It's ridiculous. I've stopped going to the site. Instead I'm checking slashgear and subreddits.

brwnll 11y ago

Don't most ad blockers also block third party trackers? I know uBlock Origin blocks Google Analytics for example. I don't know Alexa's fallback/tracking methods, but couldn't these be an indicator of adoption rate of ad blockers, as these charts are not precisely an indicator of traffic, but specifically a measure of trackable traffic.

pm24601 11y ago

I had problems with these sites even though I wasn't using an adblocker, I just didn't have Flash installed.

erikpukinskis 11y ago

I suspect there is a hidden variable here: the degree to which management is embracing "new rules". All of these declines seem to have started before ad-blocking-blocking. All of the development effort and management energy that went into blocking didn't go into content or marketing. A company who is losing the content game is exactly the kind of company who would try to win through content controls. And in the case of the Washington Post, the reason they only "experimented" is because Jeff Bezos is not that kind of thinker. He likes change, and doesn't mind reorienting around new rules. If anything he sees them as opportunities. These choices don't happen in a vacuum. They look like a proxy for cultural issues to me.

Overtonwindow 11y ago

When I am confronted by an anti-ad block website, I go away, or I find a way around it. Viewing ads does not bother me. Viewing obtrusive advertisements, and those ridiculous scripts that pull you out of the site and into the App Store, pop ups, auto play videos, audio, and every other intrusive, ridiculous advertisement, is what I hate. Ads don't bother me, websites that act like assholes bother me.