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> Nothing is preventing you from showing a self-hosted, untracked image that's actually an ad. Which is largely impossible for smaller sites. If you contact co

> Nothing is preventing you from showing a self-hosted, untracked image that's actually an ad. Which is largely impossible for smaller sites. If you contact companies directly and ask if they'd like to advertise (or just have a contact page) they expect you to have millions of daily users. Not to mention that you have to build systems to track how many times the banner is shown to the users and have some way to verify this (e.g. that they are not bots/crawlers). Saying; "just host your own ads" is a lot similar to "if you don't like the software, just make your own from scratch". It's not that easy for most people.

tomp 9y ago
Most sites have tracking via GA as well, why not just show advertisers that, and let them buy e.g. 1/3 of the monthly traffic? AFAIK most ad-blockers don't block GA (though other plugins do). Edit: Ah, I just checked, uBlock apparently blocks GA whereas AdBlock doesn't.
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  If you add any privacy related list to any blocker, GA is blocked, thankfully.
- takeda 9y ago
  AdBlock now allows ads and trackers from companies that satisfy their proper ad criteria. One of the criteria is also a payment that depends on the size of your company.
icebraining 9y ago
Right, but it won't be impossible when the alternative is not advertising at all in millions of sites.
gfody 9y ago
this is the real shame. people don't block ads because they can't stand the site of them. it's because the whole ad infrastructure is so janky that it makes the browsing experience glitchy and unstable. nobody wants cookie stuffing popunder free download now buttons on their site but ad providers don't really give much in the way of being able to selectively filter those out.
- wott 9y ago
  > people don't block ads because they can't stand the site of them. That's cute :-)
- jdangu 9y ago
  We're doing exactly that at my startup Confiant [1], blocking bad ads in stream on behalf of publishers. High quality content websites don't want to ruin UX with bad ads. [1] https://www.confiant.com https://www.confiant.com
  - gfody 9y ago
    cool startup! do you do anything about the infrastructure though? I mean a regular old banner image is OK, but the same image delivered via the series of scripts all tracking, sniffing, and profiling with all the cookie stuffing and who knows what else black magic bullshit is in those adtech js really screws with the browsing experience. uMatrix doesn't just hide ads - it blocks the ad tech entirely which ends up improving the whole experience by making the site load faster, use less ram, not spin up my fans and heat up the battery, etc.
    - jdangu 9y ago
      yup, we detect and block most sleazy ad tech schemes through the daisy-chain of third parties. Agreed on UX improvement with ad blockers, we're doing this selectively on behalf of publishers.
- featherverse 9y ago
  > people don't block ads because they can't stand the site of them. Oh yeah? Where do you get your research from? I guarantee people are blocking ads because they hate ads and everything else is secondary. You want some proof? TIVO sold millions of devices because of the ability to skip ads. People hate ads.
  - gfody 9y ago
    there's a big difference between a tv commercial and a banner ad. one completely hijacks your attention for some period and the other is more like a billboard or poster - if you're not interested you don't have to pay attention to it. I know some sites have taken to showing full screen overlays and that's a lot more like a tv commercial, which I agree people hate. but for the most part we're talking about banners and their corresponding infrastructure for tracking and targeting (which is more intrusive than the actual ad mist of the time).
manquer 9y ago
Each site owner need not do it on his own . Perhaps there is an opportunity for an open source ad hosting solution which has all the features and connect to one or more central marketplaces where advertisers can place bids and also each ad can have be rated basis user responses and feedback and you can configure which marketplaces to list and restrict the quality of ads and the kind of tracking

tomp 9y ago

Most sites have tracking via GA as well, why not just show advertisers that, and let them buy e.g. 1/3 of the monthly traffic? AFAIK most ad-blockers don't block GA (though other plugins do). Edit: Ah, I just checked, uBlock apparently blocks GA whereas AdBlock doesn't.

LeoNatan25 9y ago
If you add any privacy related list to any blocker, GA is blocked, thankfully.
takeda 9y ago
AdBlock now allows ads and trackers from companies that satisfy their proper ad criteria. One of the criteria is also a payment that depends on the size of your company.

icebraining 9y ago

Right, but it won't be impossible when the alternative is not advertising at all in millions of sites.

gfody 9y ago

this is the real shame. people don't block ads because they can't stand the site of them. it's because the whole ad infrastructure is so janky that it makes the browsing experience glitchy and unstable. nobody wants cookie stuffing popunder free download now buttons on their site but ad providers don't really give much in the way of being able to selectively filter those out.

wott 9y ago
> people don't block ads because they can't stand the site of them. That's cute :-)
jdangu 9y ago
We're doing exactly that at my startup Confiant [1], blocking bad ads in stream on behalf of publishers. High quality content websites don't want to ruin UX with bad ads. [1] https://www.confiant.com https://www.confiant.com
- gfody 9y ago
  cool startup! do you do anything about the infrastructure though? I mean a regular old banner image is OK, but the same image delivered via the series of scripts all tracking, sniffing, and profiling with all the cookie stuffing and who knows what else black magic bullshit is in those adtech js really screws with the browsing experience. uMatrix doesn't just hide ads - it blocks the ad tech entirely which ends up improving the whole experience by making the site load faster, use less ram, not spin up my fans and heat up the battery, etc.
  - jdangu 9y ago
    yup, we detect and block most sleazy ad tech schemes through the daisy-chain of third parties. Agreed on UX improvement with ad blockers, we're doing this selectively on behalf of publishers.
featherverse 9y ago
> people don't block ads because they can't stand the site of them. Oh yeah? Where do you get your research from? I guarantee people are blocking ads because they hate ads and everything else is secondary. You want some proof? TIVO sold millions of devices because of the ability to skip ads. People hate ads.
- gfody 9y ago
  there's a big difference between a tv commercial and a banner ad. one completely hijacks your attention for some period and the other is more like a billboard or poster - if you're not interested you don't have to pay attention to it. I know some sites have taken to showing full screen overlays and that's a lot more like a tv commercial, which I agree people hate. but for the most part we're talking about banners and their corresponding infrastructure for tracking and targeting (which is more intrusive than the actual ad mist of the time).

manquer 9y ago

Each site owner need not do it on his own . Perhaps there is an opportunity for an open source ad hosting solution which has all the features and connect to one or more central marketplaces where advertisers can place bids and also each ad can have be rated basis user responses and feedback and you can configure which marketplaces to list and restrict the quality of ads and the kind of tracking