5 ms·

"It’s important to note that some sites affected by this change may also contain Google ads. To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the mo

"It’s important to note that some sites affected by this change may also contain Google ads. To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate — even for us." Many of us are wired to see changes like this as a power grab camouflaged with flowery words, or possibly another step on the slippery slope to censorship and government control. We've been trained that every corporate action is selfish, by definition against our interests. But Google has demonstrated over the years that they're willing to sacrifice their short-term gains to maximize their long-term gains. Since their long-term gains depend on a vibrant, open web, sometimes their long-term selfish actions are actually in our interest, too.

hartator 9y ago
> To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate — even for us. To the point of not receiving salaries? I’ve little sympathy here.
- lallysingh 9y ago
  Why is that the threshold? Edit: autocorrect fixes
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
6d6b73 9y ago
All they want to do is to squash most of the competition . In a long term all of the small players in the ad industry will not survive if they have to fight with ad blocking software AND google.
- notatoad 9y ago
  As long as google is fighting to make the internet better, and the competition is actively trying to make it worse, I'm okay with the competition being squashed.
- simias 9y ago
  I suspect that they're more afraid of ad blockers than the competition, although I could be wrong. If users are annoyed by intrusive ads they're more likely to install an ad blocker. If they do that they're likely to block google's less-intrusive ads as well.
  - 6d6b73 9y ago
    Probably 90% of users don't have any idea what an ad blocker is..
    - saagarjha 9y ago
      This may have been true a couple years ago, but I don't think it's true anymore. The majority of people are annoyed by ads, and all it takes is one friend to tell them to "install this to not see ads" or a nephew to come over for them to have access to an ad blocker. I'd estimate this percentage as closer to 50%.
    - mulmen 9y ago
      76.3% of statistics are made up on the spot.
oehpr 9y ago
Well you're looking at this in a very saccharine light. Have you been following the discussion leading up to this? There have been very pointed questions about how truly independent the coalition for better ads is. There's questions about and advertising company blocking advertisements from other companies. There's questions about the layer of the browser this was added to. There's questions about even what the better ads coalition purports to do! Can the coalition truly be independent when their only active enforcer is a member? Would that coalition defy that one member ever? Under what circumstances will other sites and advertisers learn of updates to ads? Will that policy remain? Will google always have a head start? What of ads and scripts designed to track and de-anonymize you? What of ads that consume huge amounts of bandwidth passively while not otherwise being annoying? These policies seem directed only at the aesthetic of the web. And really, it remains to be seen if our long term interests are in line with googles, if you asked me, I'd very much say no.
bzbarsky 9y ago
> Since their long-term gains depend on a vibrant, open web Does it? This is not at all obvious to me. Do you mind sharing your reasoning for this claim?
OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago
I have a famous bridge to sell you. Cheap too.
ksk 9y ago
>To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate — even for us." That's begs the question - Why were those ads approved by Google in the first place? They were the source of the problem to begin with !! Also, before we rush to judgement, how much revenue were those ads generating for Google in the first place? I would respect them a bit more if they actually are taking a hit on this. >But Google has demonstrated over the years that they're willing to sacrifice their short-term gains to maximize their long-term gains. How have they demonstrated that? Could you elaborate?
- aembleton 9y ago
  They might not be Google ads. A webpage can have both Google ads and dodgy-ad-co ads. If they have the dodgy-ad-co ads then Google will apply the easylist to the page, which will remove the Google ads as well as the dodgy ones.
- panarky 9y ago
  >> But Google has demonstrated over the years that they're willing to sacrifice their short-term gains to maximize their long-term gains. > How have they demonstrated that? Could you elaborate? Before Google, web search results were rotten. Advertisers could push their sites onto the front page, and paid ads were indistinguishable from organic results. Google's innovation was to deliver pure search results with the highest relevance, with zero influence from advertisers. Ads were separate and labeled as such. By sacrificing near-term ad revenue, Google built trust with users, and won search in the long-term. Other examples: Google could have kept Android closed and charged for licenses. But by open-sourcing it and allowing competitors to use it, they sacrificed short-term license revenue to build a much larger ecosystem. Google capitulated to government demands that they censor search results in China. But then they reversed course, exited mainland China, and sacrificed revenue from that massive market. Long-term, active censorship would damage Google's reputation.
  - goatsi 9y ago
    >Advertisers could push their sites onto the front page, and paid ads were indistinguishable from organic results. >Google's innovation was to deliver pure search results with the highest relevance, with zero influence from advertisers. Ads were separate and labeled as such. Have you tried using Google without an adblocker recently? If I search "buy a car" using Chrome on Android the entire screen of my phone is filled with ads that I need to scroll past to get to the "pure" search results. The only indication that they are ads is a tiny box 1/8 the size of a fingernail. The top result on the embedded Google maps box is also an ad.
tripzilch 9y ago
I think you forgot the "/s". Kudos on keeping a straight face after the initial quote, though. But seriously, this line: > To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate — even for us." Is a flat out lie and you should know better by now. Unless the "us" speaking here is a very specific (and powerless) subset of whoever could be speaking for Google. Which would make it merely disingenuous. And even then their actions require a lot more before they deserve that kind of trust again. > We've been trained that every corporate action is selfish, by definition against our interests. If we had been trained we might've gotten to this conclusion sooner and prevent some of the worse shit that's happened because of it. But we weren't trained (what would have trained us?). I'd rather say we've been extremely slow to recognize that even though the law recognizes corporations as persons (in some places), they are in fact, inhuman. And they will continue to act with complete disregard to human interests. I think it's still useful to think of corporations as organisms, just not of our species, in the same way that a fungus is not the same species as its substrate. Some people "at the top" believe they are in control, but they are in control as much as you can be in control sitting on top of a wild, untamed beast. And you've seen it, corporations replace "the top people" like any other employee and it doesn't change much. Not nearly as much as they want you to think. It's more like trimming your fingernails than getting a heart transplant. Of course, nation states are just the same. Conglomerate hierarchies of humans, doing whatever to stay in existence as a sort of entity. Problem was they were caged by design, rules, from the bottom up. This was because we needed them to be, we saw tyrannies rising when we didn't. So we made rules to bind them, deliberately stunted like bonsai trees, to preserve our individual freedom and not become cogs or ants. So they subverted the meaning of "freedom", because we should be free to make new corporations (conglomerate hierarchies, egregores, group minds, call them however you like), because you know, freedom! Except this exploit existed even within the nation states that were deliberately stunted to not grow out of control. Just don't feed them after midnight, okay? And then we were free to create corporations, without stunts, or rules or restrictions to preserve actual real individual human freedom. And of course these new corporations quickly grew to become more powerful than many nation states. REALLY quickly, if you think about it, if you compare it to the speed at which nation states exchange power and conquer one another. But corporations kill at sub-decade frequency currently. I went a bit off a tangent here sorry, and I doubt this is the proper forum to share this kind of thing either. But just stop and think for a moment, who or what is writing those words you just quoted. It's not something that could ever be your "friend".

hartator 9y ago

> To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate — even for us. To the point of not receiving salaries? I’ve little sympathy here.

lallysingh 9y ago
Why is that the threshold? Edit: autocorrect fixes
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

6d6b73 9y ago

All they want to do is to squash most of the competition . In a long term all of the small players in the ad industry will not survive if they have to fight with ad blocking software AND google.

notatoad 9y ago
As long as google is fighting to make the internet better, and the competition is actively trying to make it worse, I'm okay with the competition being squashed.
simias 9y ago
I suspect that they're more afraid of ad blockers than the competition, although I could be wrong. If users are annoyed by intrusive ads they're more likely to install an ad blocker. If they do that they're likely to block google's less-intrusive ads as well.
- 6d6b73 9y ago
  Probably 90% of users don't have any idea what an ad blocker is..
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    This may have been true a couple years ago, but I don't think it's true anymore. The majority of people are annoyed by ads, and all it takes is one friend to tell them to "install this to not see ads" or a nephew to come over for them to have access to an ad blocker. I'd estimate this percentage as closer to 50%.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    76.3% of statistics are made up on the spot.

oehpr 9y ago

Well you're looking at this in a very saccharine light. Have you been following the discussion leading up to this? There have been very pointed questions about how truly independent the coalition for better ads is. There's questions about and advertising company blocking advertisements from other companies. There's questions about the layer of the browser this was added to. There's questions about even what the better ads coalition purports to do! Can the coalition truly be independent when their only active enforcer is a member? Would that coalition defy that one member ever? Under what circumstances will other sites and advertisers learn of updates to ads? Will that policy remain? Will google always have a head start? What of ads and scripts designed to track and de-anonymize you? What of ads that consume huge amounts of bandwidth passively while not otherwise being annoying? These policies seem directed only at the aesthetic of the web. And really, it remains to be seen if our long term interests are in line with googles, if you asked me, I'd very much say no.

bzbarsky 9y ago

> Since their long-term gains depend on a vibrant, open web Does it? This is not at all obvious to me. Do you mind sharing your reasoning for this claim?

OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago

I have a famous bridge to sell you. Cheap too.

ksk 9y ago

>To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate — even for us." That's begs the question - Why were those ads approved by Google in the first place? They were the source of the problem to begin with !! Also, before we rush to judgement, how much revenue were those ads generating for Google in the first place? I would respect them a bit more if they actually are taking a hit on this. >But Google has demonstrated over the years that they're willing to sacrifice their short-term gains to maximize their long-term gains. How have they demonstrated that? Could you elaborate?

aembleton 9y ago
They might not be Google ads. A webpage can have both Google ads and dodgy-ad-co ads. If they have the dodgy-ad-co ads then Google will apply the easylist to the page, which will remove the Google ads as well as the dodgy ones.
panarky 9y ago
>> But Google has demonstrated over the years that they're willing to sacrifice their short-term gains to maximize their long-term gains. > How have they demonstrated that? Could you elaborate? Before Google, web search results were rotten. Advertisers could push their sites onto the front page, and paid ads were indistinguishable from organic results. Google's innovation was to deliver pure search results with the highest relevance, with zero influence from advertisers. Ads were separate and labeled as such. By sacrificing near-term ad revenue, Google built trust with users, and won search in the long-term. Other examples: Google could have kept Android closed and charged for licenses. But by open-sourcing it and allowing competitors to use it, they sacrificed short-term license revenue to build a much larger ecosystem. Google capitulated to government demands that they censor search results in China. But then they reversed course, exited mainland China, and sacrificed revenue from that massive market. Long-term, active censorship would damage Google's reputation.
- goatsi 9y ago
  >Advertisers could push their sites onto the front page, and paid ads were indistinguishable from organic results. >Google's innovation was to deliver pure search results with the highest relevance, with zero influence from advertisers. Ads were separate and labeled as such. Have you tried using Google without an adblocker recently? If I search "buy a car" using Chrome on Android the entire screen of my phone is filled with ads that I need to scroll past to get to the "pure" search results. The only indication that they are ads is a tiny box 1/8 the size of a fingernail. The top result on the embedded Google maps box is also an ad.

tripzilch 9y ago

I think you forgot the "/s". Kudos on keeping a straight face after the initial quote, though. But seriously, this line: > To us, your experience on the web is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate — even for us." Is a flat out lie and you should know better by now. Unless the "us" speaking here is a very specific (and powerless) subset of whoever could be speaking for Google. Which would make it merely disingenuous. And even then their actions require a lot more before they deserve that kind of trust again. > We've been trained that every corporate action is selfish, by definition against our interests. If we had been trained we might've gotten to this conclusion sooner and prevent some of the worse shit that's happened because of it. But we weren't trained (what would have trained us?). I'd rather say we've been extremely slow to recognize that even though the law recognizes corporations as persons (in some places), they are in fact, inhuman. And they will continue to act with complete disregard to human interests. I think it's still useful to think of corporations as organisms, just not of our species, in the same way that a fungus is not the same species as its substrate. Some people "at the top" believe they are in control, but they are in control as much as you can be in control sitting on top of a wild, untamed beast. And you've seen it, corporations replace "the top people" like any other employee and it doesn't change much. Not nearly as much as they want you to think. It's more like trimming your fingernails than getting a heart transplant. Of course, nation states are just the same. Conglomerate hierarchies of humans, doing whatever to stay in existence as a sort of entity. Problem was they were caged by design, rules, from the bottom up. This was because we needed them to be, we saw tyrannies rising when we didn't. So we made rules to bind them, deliberately stunted like bonsai trees, to preserve our individual freedom and not become cogs or ants. So they subverted the meaning of "freedom", because we should be free to make new corporations (conglomerate hierarchies, egregores, group minds, call them however you like), because you know, freedom! Except this exploit existed even within the nation states that were deliberately stunted to not grow out of control. Just don't feed them after midnight, okay? And then we were free to create corporations, without stunts, or rules or restrictions to preserve actual real individual human freedom. And of course these new corporations quickly grew to become more powerful than many nation states. REALLY quickly, if you think about it, if you compare it to the speed at which nation states exchange power and conquer one another. But corporations kill at sub-decade frequency currently. I went a bit off a tangent here sorry, and I doubt this is the proper forum to share this kind of thing either. But just stop and think for a moment, who or what is writing those words you just quoted. It's not something that could ever be your "friend".