9 ms·

We, as users, have been oversaturated and desensitized. There is so much crap shoved in our faces, that we've learned over the years to ignore all ads. Speakin

We, as users, have been oversaturated and desensitized. There is so much crap shoved in our faces, that we've learned over the years to ignore all ads. Speaking for myself, I have an almost visceral negative reaction with ads. I would (and do) pay dumb amounts of money for a service if that means I'm not served ads.

Nition 10y ago
This sounds like a joke but when an obtrusive ad comes up I literally only see Close, X, etc now. Totally tune out the whole thing except the parts that look like they might make it go away.
- Whitestrake 10y ago
  I'm with you - totally unable to remember the contents of the last lightbox popup I dismissed, and I'd challenge anyone to honestly recall theirs if it wasn't within the last few minutes.
marze 10y ago
What does this have to do with the topic at hand? The topic is that the traffic the ads bought were bots or click farms.
- abalashov 10y ago
  A great deal?
victorhooi 10y ago
What exactly is "dumb" amounts of money? If by dumb, you mean enough for authors to get by, then you are probably in the minority. People love talking about how much they hate ads, and how, no, they're not cheap, they would totally pay for content. Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. And if site A starts charging, they will jump ship to site B, until eventually it's a race to the bottom. Ads seems to be the only model that works (thus far). Many attempts have been made to monetise things (a la micropayments). I believe Google did something before, where you paid cents, or fractions of a cent to authors for article views. This was back in 2012: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20395407 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20395407 And recently Mozilla's Brendan Eich is doing Brave, with bitcoin micropayments. I'd love to see it gain traction, but I don't see it going mainstream. Look, I know some ad networks go too far - but IMHO, Google/FB ads are hardly that intrusive. (I personally hate pop-up/pop-under ads, and auto-playing videos) (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not in ads - above opinions are purely my own).
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  Sure -- I agree that content producers need to make money, and ads (invasive/unethical or not) are a time proven way of achieving this end. Let's do a run down of my monthly online spend. Netflix: ~$9.99 Hulu premium: $11.99 HBO now (or is it HBO go?): ~$12.99 Sling TV: ~$50 Google play (includes YouTube red): ~$13 Amazon prime (also used for the Amazon TV shows): ~$9 Spotify: $10 A random Twitch show that I patronize: $6.66 Wikipedia: I donate $10/year, so let's say $1. So, roughly, ~$125/month. I use Tumblr heavily and the ads piss me off, but the moment they offer a premium ad-free option they can shut up and take my money.
  - matwood 10y ago
    Interesting you use Spotify and Play. Spotify really seems redundant in your scenario.
    - dajohnson89 10y ago
      I see why you might think that -- but Spotify's playlists and the discover weekly features overall are much better then Google play. Yet, as a project fi & G apps user, Google play has great download functionality.
  - lisivka 10y ago
    Add Kiva to your list. ;-)
- bobajeff 10y ago
  I believe ad networks (that rely on third-party scripts and cookies) days are numbered thanks to adblocking. The only ads I see surviving long term are affiliate links, sponcered content and static native ads. The problems with ad networks are too big to go on for very long. Poor user experience, Ad fraud, malware, the indiscriminate gathering and selling of user information. It's just a matter of time 'till everyone has a adblocker.
  - phamilton 10y ago
Fiahil 10y ago
Oversaturated and desensitized, yes, but too few non-technical people are bothered enough to install an ad blocker. This is an issue because the biggest security threats, today, come from ad-network-delivered-junk. It has become so much of an issue that my advice on which antivirus to install has shifted from xxx to uBlock Origin. It's just basic computer hygiene, and I would really like if content creator would move away from ad network based advertising.
- xg15 10y ago
  I like the irony at that. For a long time you were exactly right and "the consumer wants it this way" was a convenient argument that ad-supported sites could make. Now ad-blocking gets more and more mainstream - and many sites (especially news sites apparently) start to panic, pleading users to disable their ad-blockers or putting up ad-blocker-blockers...
  - ams6110 10y ago
    News sites don't get it. There is no story I'm interested in reading in the WSJ or NYT that I can't find on a dozen other free news sites. Sure they do investigative pieces, but if they are really noteworthy they'll get reported on elsewhere within hours. I would never consider paying for a news site.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      News sites absolutely get that people like you exist and are quite common; you're the reason why free-to-readers, clickbait headlined sites where content is either paid for by heavy advertisement or interested parties sponsoring content are so dominant -- no reader-focussed business model can be built around users with those preferences.
      - maksimum 10y ago
        And what would the contrasting preferences be? People who are willing to pay for journalism for news' sake?
agumonkey 10y ago
Depends on the audience too. I'm anti consumerist somehow and reject ads mentally (it's as if they didn't exist on TV to my mind). The few times I've clicked on ads were for odd geek products (SBC). A few times I found a website / company that indeed taught me something about a brand / product / idea ... but in retrospect a webpage ad is way too superficial for me to know that in advance, and doesn't trigger curiosity much (offseted by the browsing experience penalties).
- phamilton 10y ago
  Curious, how does your behavior around perfectly elastic goods play out? Two products, same price, arguably indistinguishable (eg. Coke and Pepsi). I like to think I fall into the same category, where ads don't prompt me to spend money I wasn't going to spend before, but I think all else being equal I stick to brands I've heard of (via ads).
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Out of my head, these kinds of products appealed to me as a kid, and I sticked to those I liked more. Pepsi lacked something. I can't be sure how psychological this is (branding, logo, color .. amount of marketing in my country versus the US). I still think I could probably distinguish them blind. Early on I was fond of both brands, but later, if you offered pepsi half the price I'd still pick out a can of coke. Now I don't drink anything but water so ..
    - phamilton 10y ago
      Sure, that was just an example though. Where do you buy gas? Which lightbulbs do you buy? Which batteries do you buy? Etc.
      - agumonkey 10y ago
        Yeah sorry, I got caught in my own head. I think more than brand, it's shelves that drive the decision for such commodities. Whatever is close and in good supply I'll take without too much attention paid to the brand. Or brand reputation when I'm feel picky. But never advertising itself.
phicoh 10y ago
I'm always surprised how bad ads are on some systems. I usually like ads in specialty paper publications. It is nice to know what vendors are around, what new products they have. And you can skip an ad in a fraction of a second. Before I installed Privacy Badger, my experience was usually ads for stuff I really didn't care about, unrelated to the subject of the website. Then I start searching for something, find what I want to buy and buy it. Then for months I get ads everywhere for the product I just bought. Never for example for accessories. Of course, ads have to be as obnoxious as possible. Not just being there if you want to give them some attention, no they have to destroy your reading experience. I once gave a news site a nice donation. By sheer coincidence right after that they changed the layout to the point I stopped visiting. Of course, my donation could easily be seen as a reward for the articles I read there before, but it didn't feel right.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
Why not just use adblockers? It's free.

Nition 10y ago

This sounds like a joke but when an obtrusive ad comes up I literally only see Close, X, etc now. Totally tune out the whole thing except the parts that look like they might make it go away.

Whitestrake 10y ago
I'm with you - totally unable to remember the contents of the last lightbox popup I dismissed, and I'd challenge anyone to honestly recall theirs if it wasn't within the last few minutes.

marze 10y ago

What does this have to do with the topic at hand? The topic is that the traffic the ads bought were bots or click farms.

abalashov 10y ago
A great deal?

victorhooi 10y ago

What exactly is "dumb" amounts of money? If by dumb, you mean enough for authors to get by, then you are probably in the minority. People love talking about how much they hate ads, and how, no, they're not cheap, they would totally pay for content. Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. And if site A starts charging, they will jump ship to site B, until eventually it's a race to the bottom. Ads seems to be the only model that works (thus far). Many attempts have been made to monetise things (a la micropayments). I believe Google did something before, where you paid cents, or fractions of a cent to authors for article views. This was back in 2012: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20395407 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20395407 And recently Mozilla's Brendan Eich is doing Brave, with bitcoin micropayments. I'd love to see it gain traction, but I don't see it going mainstream. Look, I know some ad networks go too far - but IMHO, Google/FB ads are hardly that intrusive. (I personally hate pop-up/pop-under ads, and auto-playing videos) (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not in ads - above opinions are purely my own).

dajohnson89 10y ago
Sure -- I agree that content producers need to make money, and ads (invasive/unethical or not) are a time proven way of achieving this end. Let's do a run down of my monthly online spend. Netflix: ~$9.99 Hulu premium: $11.99 HBO now (or is it HBO go?): ~$12.99 Sling TV: ~$50 Google play (includes YouTube red): ~$13 Amazon prime (also used for the Amazon TV shows): ~$9 Spotify: $10 A random Twitch show that I patronize: $6.66 Wikipedia: I donate $10/year, so let's say $1. So, roughly, ~$125/month. I use Tumblr heavily and the ads piss me off, but the moment they offer a premium ad-free option they can shut up and take my money.
- matwood 10y ago
  Interesting you use Spotify and Play. Spotify really seems redundant in your scenario.
  - dajohnson89 10y ago
    I see why you might think that -- but Spotify's playlists and the discover weekly features overall are much better then Google play. Yet, as a project fi & G apps user, Google play has great download functionality.
- lisivka 10y ago
  Add Kiva to your list. ;-)
bobajeff 10y ago
I believe ad networks (that rely on third-party scripts and cookies) days are numbered thanks to adblocking. The only ads I see surviving long term are affiliate links, sponcered content and static native ads. The problems with ad networks are too big to go on for very long. Poor user experience, Ad fraud, malware, the indiscriminate gathering and selling of user information. It's just a matter of time 'till everyone has a adblocker.
- phamilton 10y ago

Fiahil 10y ago

Oversaturated and desensitized, yes, but too few non-technical people are bothered enough to install an ad blocker. This is an issue because the biggest security threats, today, come from ad-network-delivered-junk. It has become so much of an issue that my advice on which antivirus to install has shifted from xxx to uBlock Origin. It's just basic computer hygiene, and I would really like if content creator would move away from ad network based advertising.

xg15 10y ago
I like the irony at that. For a long time you were exactly right and "the consumer wants it this way" was a convenient argument that ad-supported sites could make. Now ad-blocking gets more and more mainstream - and many sites (especially news sites apparently) start to panic, pleading users to disable their ad-blockers or putting up ad-blocker-blockers...
- ams6110 10y ago
  News sites don't get it. There is no story I'm interested in reading in the WSJ or NYT that I can't find on a dozen other free news sites. Sure they do investigative pieces, but if they are really noteworthy they'll get reported on elsewhere within hours. I would never consider paying for a news site.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    News sites absolutely get that people like you exist and are quite common; you're the reason why free-to-readers, clickbait headlined sites where content is either paid for by heavy advertisement or interested parties sponsoring content are so dominant -- no reader-focussed business model can be built around users with those preferences.
    - maksimum 10y ago
      And what would the contrasting preferences be? People who are willing to pay for journalism for news' sake?

agumonkey 10y ago

Depends on the audience too. I'm anti consumerist somehow and reject ads mentally (it's as if they didn't exist on TV to my mind). The few times I've clicked on ads were for odd geek products (SBC). A few times I found a website / company that indeed taught me something about a brand / product / idea ... but in retrospect a webpage ad is way too superficial for me to know that in advance, and doesn't trigger curiosity much (offseted by the browsing experience penalties).

phamilton 10y ago
Curious, how does your behavior around perfectly elastic goods play out? Two products, same price, arguably indistinguishable (eg. Coke and Pepsi). I like to think I fall into the same category, where ads don't prompt me to spend money I wasn't going to spend before, but I think all else being equal I stick to brands I've heard of (via ads).
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Out of my head, these kinds of products appealed to me as a kid, and I sticked to those I liked more. Pepsi lacked something. I can't be sure how psychological this is (branding, logo, color .. amount of marketing in my country versus the US). I still think I could probably distinguish them blind. Early on I was fond of both brands, but later, if you offered pepsi half the price I'd still pick out a can of coke. Now I don't drink anything but water so ..
  - phamilton 10y ago
    Sure, that was just an example though. Where do you buy gas? Which lightbulbs do you buy? Which batteries do you buy? Etc.
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      Yeah sorry, I got caught in my own head. I think more than brand, it's shelves that drive the decision for such commodities. Whatever is close and in good supply I'll take without too much attention paid to the brand. Or brand reputation when I'm feel picky. But never advertising itself.

phicoh 10y ago

I'm always surprised how bad ads are on some systems. I usually like ads in specialty paper publications. It is nice to know what vendors are around, what new products they have. And you can skip an ad in a fraction of a second. Before I installed Privacy Badger, my experience was usually ads for stuff I really didn't care about, unrelated to the subject of the website. Then I start searching for something, find what I want to buy and buy it. Then for months I get ads everywhere for the product I just bought. Never for example for accessories. Of course, ads have to be as obnoxious as possible. Not just being there if you want to give them some attention, no they have to destroy your reading experience. I once gave a news site a nice donation. By sheer coincidence right after that they changed the layout to the point I stopped visiting. Of course, my donation could easily be seen as a reward for the articles I read there before, but it didn't feel right.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

Why not just use adblockers? It's free.