9 ms·

The Rise of Adblock Shaming

56 points by jesperlang 8y ago

Vaslo 8y ago
Is there a way to hide adblocking from the site so they don’t even know you’re using it?
- et-al 8y ago
  Not if your browser extension is blocking the remote Javascript code that's used for displaying the ads. And even if you did manage to reverse-engineer an extension to send a "ads loaded" token to the site, their ad network would update their code a week later. That's why folks call it an arms race.
  - malka 8y ago
    as long as the user controls what its cpu execute, they have an edge :) It's a losing race for publishers on desktop.
- bluedino 8y ago
  They’d just make an Adblock detector detector detector
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    There's an ad block detector called "FuckAdblock", so the tool to circumvent it is called "FuckFuckAdblock". There's probably a fuck^3adblock
- rightbyte 8y ago
  I assume it's theoretically possible to ghost render and and execute tracking scripts in a sandbox? Just need some browser support ...
  - 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
    They'd probably run a suite of microbenchmarks in the sandbox and use that performance profile to fingerprint you. That might be an improvement over the status quo, but I think the basic rule is that if you let tracking scripts phone home, you lose.
- JohnTHaller 8y ago
  The scripts these user detect that you've blocked the ad load. So, there are now adblock lists that block the block detectors. So, there are not adblock detector block detectors. It's an arms race.
- dvh 8y ago
  Run a browser without adblock in virtual or headless setup with JS on (so that they can e.g. measure size of loaded images) with custom extension that will in read-only way (all code has to be in anonymous function so that it doesn't leak global variables, no changes to dom, no timers or intervals) extract articles and send them somehow out of this virtual so that you can read them. Extracting code would have to be tailor made for each site. IMHO doable. Alternative is copy paste article title to the Google and find news outlet that doesn't block the adblock.
- elorant 8y ago
  Not with current technology because all ad blocking does is blocking hosts. So a site can tell if parts of the code have loaded/executed or not. In order to go completely stealth you'd have to let the page load everything and then just don't show it. But that's way more complicated and besides a bit pointless because part of the reason for ad blocking is to make sites load faster by removing all that bloatware. That, or we move ad blocking out of the browser and into the OS where sites have absolutely no access whatsoever.
  - akerro 8y ago
    >Not with current technology because all ad blocking does is blocking hosts That's funny as first adblockers on Firefox used to just hide divs. Browser was still downloading flash object and images, but was not displaying them
  - navbaker 8y ago
    >That, or we move ad blocking out of the browser and into the OS where sites have absolutely no access whatsoever. Interesting concept. Asking as a layman: is this possible? Is the browser sandboxed enough away from the OS that this is a difficult problem? Is that why we haven’t seen solutions that implement this approach?
    - elorant 8y ago
      Possible yes, probable not so much. Building extensions is simpler than building desktop apps. For one you need only JavaScript. While if you move in the OS you'd have to support different versions of systems (you have Windows, OSX, Android, IOS, Linux) and it is much more cumbersome than in the browser.
  - gruez 8y ago
    >That, or we move ad blocking out of the browser and into the OS where sites have absolutely no access whatsoever. that's probably overkill. all you need to do is move the adblocking part further back into the rendering pipeline (ie. outside of the DOM) so that javascript can't detect it.
  - 8y ago
- oweiler 8y ago
  https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net
- gruez 8y ago
  yes, but it will have to operate outside the DOM. currently adblock killer/detection scripts relies on the fact that resources/scripts fail to load (both can be detected), or an element isn't showing (the nag message is hidden under the place where the ad should be). if your browser is dutifully rendering the ads as intended, but blocks it out in the frame buffer, there's nothing the site can do. no such adblocker exists as of yet.
  - detaro 8y ago
    Which means you loose a lot if the benefits of an ad blocker, and thus makes it worthwhile to instead invest in the arms race: You have to watch a black screen for the duration of video ads, ads that pop up overlaying content still get in your way, you loose the bandwidth/memory/CPU capacity for loading and rendering them.
    - jungletek 8y ago
      Loose == !Tight Lose == !Win
      - detaro 8y ago
        right, thanks!
- hellojason 8y ago
  You could setup something at the network level, which zaps requests before they even make it to your computer. Pi-hole [1] works well. Still using it in conjunction with browser-based ad blockers though, but it works for all devices on your network, even smart TVs and Rokus. [1] https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net
pavel_lishin 8y ago
> It’s not that online advertising is inherently good or bad That's definitely an opinion one is entitled to.
yuhong 8y ago
I did mention ad blocking in the essay. In general, the current economy is fundamentally based on extracting more dollars from "consumers".
JohnTHaller 8y ago
I've found that asking nicely without being intrusive gets better results. At PortableApps.com, if you block ads, I have it set to show a single unobtrusive message using the same fonts, colors, and backgrounds as the rest of the site in the area where the first ad would appear. The message says "Please Help Support Us: Please consider white-listing us or making a donation so we can keep bringing you awesome apps. If you recently donated, thank you!" It's designed so that when it appears after detecting that the ad isn't shown, it doesn't make the page jump size/layout wise. In the text, 'white-listing us' links to instructions to whitelist the site and 'making a donation' links to our donations page. The detection script even cleans up the bits of background from hiding the other ads so the page still looks clean. It helps that I have the site setup to only show a single ad above the fold for the majority of users and don't allow popovers, popunders, overlays, sound, etc. Eventually, I'd like to add an option to display a message for donation accounts or something similar, but recurring payments and Drupal don't really play well anymore. The only supported add-on in existence is now Recurly. They're pricing was $1,200 a year but they switched it to "Ask for a Quote" (aka expensive but we don't want to say), so it's not something we'd be able to afford for the number of users.
- tlavoie 8y ago
  Hi, and thanks for posting the content provider viewpoint. While you're here, I have a question. I'd consider white-listing, but am not willing to white-list ad networks and trackers since they also get misused as a malware vector. Would you consider hosting your own ads? Is that still a thing? Trust isn't transitive, so it's still a problem even if we're OK with you in particular.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    The problem is that you need to be big enough to negotiate your own ad deals. Hosting your own ads isn’t the challenge. Good luck with that.
    - stevesearer 8y ago
      My thinking is that the most difficult part is creating a website where people want to advertise specifically, then connecting with those people, with the easiest part being the actual negotiation stage. For those looking to jump into direct sales and self-hosting, my suggestion is to create a second position of an ad unit you sell through a network and try to sell that without removing your existing ad network unit. Then work to contact the people who advertise on your site through the network and try to sign them up directly. Chances are you can save them money while still bringing in more revenue as you no longer share revenue with the network.
GW150914 8y ago
It doesn’t come off as shaming to me, but rather as begging. Like begging, but without the human element to engender empathy or pity, so you’re just left with disgust. The internet, from “please give us a buck so we can stay up!” to endless crowdfunding resembles nothing quite so much as a collection of beggars rattling their cups and with their stories written on cardboard. If that’s your “business model” then good luck with that, but I don’t feel shame or pity. I’d like to unblock sites, but white listing only makes sense if you can trust whatever they use to serve ads. Unless they’re hostinf their own ads, I’m disinclined to trust their third party providers and trackers, even if I like and trust the site.
- egypturnash 8y ago
  I submit that it more resembles a collection of street entertainers. Each performs their art for anyone who cares to pay attention, and puts out a tip jar, hoping to make enough money to make it worth continuing to do this instead of giving up and getting a job denying insurance claims or whatever.
  - FussyZeus 8y ago
    With the added element of, if you happen to toss a quarter into said jar, it might fire it back and break your laptop. No thanks.
    - manicdee 8y ago
      That's the main reason I block ads.
    - egypturnash 8y ago
      I turned off ads once Patreon was a thing. Haven’t looked back since.
drivingmenuts 8y ago
Well, i got them beat, I’m not ashamed at all. That said, if I visit a site often, then I’ll consider unblocking. But if it’s a one-time visit, nope, gonna block.
pan69 8y ago
To content publishers; It's not the ads I have a problem with, it's the spy-ware tracking behaviour associated with the ads you show is the reason why I'm using an "ad" blocker.
- FLUX-YOU 8y ago
  Also, occasionally some malicious Javascript gets ran. But ad networks and the sites that host ads won't jump to compensate you for that.
- flashman 8y ago
  Oh, for me it's totally the ads I have a problem with. They're distracting and I didn't visit the site to see them. I'm not surprised that publishers have resorted to moral appeals to support the business model they've chosen, but I'm not swayed by those appeals either.
UncleEntity 8y ago
> It is a socialist cudgel—something that forces otherwise lazy capitalists to find new and inventive ways to make their creations sustainable. Umm, yeah... Other than pure rent-seeking every single thing under the sun could be considered a "socialist cudgel" by this logic. I honestly don't understand how they are trying to further their argument by using this quote in the article.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  I don’t even get it. HNers complain about having to subscribe to both Netflix and Hulu. What options does my 10 year old collaborative writing forum for mostly teens have? Now that my ad revenue has died over the years, all that’s left is the charity of me paying out of my pocket. Then we’ll be left with centralized sites like Reddit. I guess is the utopia that HNers envision.
olodus 8y ago
I see it as consumers telling the companies that they went too far. They let the ads take over too much of every page, let them be way too much in your face and let Spyware and other shit in. You simply used up your good-will and need to build it up again if you want to use this as an business model. The only place I've ever seen ads actually work and not be too annoying is in podcasts. They are more personal there and still isn't too much in the way. I've genuinely followed up on some companies podcasts I trust has had ads for. I have no idea how to make that work on the internet though.
alkonaut 8y ago
I’ll block everything with zero sense of shame until sites realize they have to switch to non-tracking/invasive ads. I have zero concern for whether sites think “dumb ads” is a viable business model or not. Obviously I also don’t mind if a big fraction of sites just go under because of it. If your day job is to do work for a company that is funded in any way involving modern “adtech” at any stage, I’m not very sorry for your job loss. I don’t mind ads covering 75% of the page, ads bloating downloads etc. I mind ads that invade my privacy and ads masquerading as non-ads
- listenallyall 8y ago
  > I’ll block everything Except the content, of course -- that, you expect to consume for free. This is the digital equivalent of saying to a musician, or film actor: because of the existence of a technology that allows me to consume your content for free (Napster / torrents / pirate bay / ad-blockers), I will shed all of my ethics and freely consume all of your music / movies, while at the same time I hope you never get paid and further, I hope the record label / movie studio you work for, goes out of business, all because you dared to show me an ad. Instead, you're saying it to a reporter, journalist or author. But the message is the same. And your final sentence is nonsensical. Generally, ads don't pretend they aren't ads. It's content that "masquerades" as a non-ad. http://brandsandfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/HouseOfCards3_Apple.jpg http://brandsandfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/HouseOf... Heck, HN is an ad for YCombinator masquerading as a news site / discussion forum.
  - prepend 8y ago
    There's plenty of content available for "free." There's also plenty of music available for free by musicians who play or donate. There's an assumption in your comment that all content requires some sort of compensation and I don't think that's true, and certainly not necessary for a strong society. I think this may influence your other assumption that it's unethical to freely consume content. The article author uses the example of walking through a city and refusing to look at billboards, but still taking in the view of beautiful architecture. Do you abandon ethics to view architecture? Imagine if the business models of all the businesses in those buildings depended on you looking at the ads. Would you abandon ethics to walk down the street? I think there are some people who are ambivalent if every record label and movie studio shuts down. I don't really care as there is lots of art that is created by people who like giving it away for free. Ever since the start of the net, I've structured my livelihood to specifically avoid being in the business of extracting income from IP. So I think I'm pretty well hedged against people going against their behavior to pay for my IP. I think reporters can be compensated in much better ways than ads, and I actually think that journalism will be better off if not ad supported. Part of the problem we have now is because ads and truth aren't really aligned with the same incentives so I see lots of news sites going more toward ads.
8bitsrule 8y ago
If only some Big Bank would create a secure micropayment experiment, we could experimentally determine whether that could supplant the tracking&ads regime. (At least, for those users that despise ads ... targeted or not.) If the potential rewards for hackers could be kept minimal, it'd not attract interest. The NYTimes has kept their site reasonable, but I don't want to subscribe. I like the idea of paying per-item, not bulk. That lets users encourage the kind of content (and authors) they want to see more of, while generating revenue for the content that Big Papers must provide (regardless of popular interest). WHY this topic is always off-the-radar mystifies me.
- diggernet 8y ago
  I had hopes for Millicent back around the turn of the century (man I sound old), and my employer at the time had me working on setting it up as a payment system for mp3 downloads. But it just kind of vanished. It's astonishing that all these years later there is still no widely used fractional-cent micropayment system.
alpaca128 8y ago
What I find just as bad are autoplaying videos popping up somewhere at the side or sometimes even staying at the edge of the screen when you scroll. They usually don't get blocked by adblockers and are just as annoying as pop-up ads with sound. I installed a domain block addon just for ensuring I never accidentally visit one of these sites again. There are 1000+ other sites reporting about the same news, I can live without a couple of them.
- MrMember 8y ago
  This is extra annoying on mobile. Often a quarter of the screen is taken up by a persistent menu bar that I'll never use, half by an autoplaying video that I'll never watch, leaving just a quarter of the screen space for the actual content I was looking for.
Animats 8y ago
When a site whines about being adblocked, I just go to a competing site. Few sites are special snowflakes.
- scarface74 8y ago
  And the site you left has no reason to care. If you're not paying them and you're not looking at ads, you're not a customer.
  - Crosseye_Jack 8y ago
    They may never get a chance to convert the visiter into a customer again. Personally I’ve noted in my head sites that for example give no option to disable tracking cookies. So now when I see news articles from such domains I don’t even bother clicking. Bit of a silly analogy but think about it like a brick and mortar store getting pissed off at you for not looking at the display company X are paying them for. If they can not prove that enough customers are interacting with the display though sales or information requests they won’t be able to sell the space for as much next time. So the B&M has an incentive to get you to engage with the display and you just walk right on past it... Shame on you... So you manager of the store says that you can not browse the rest of his store until you agree to looking at the display. Dunno about you but I wouldn’t want to visit that store again. My point is instead of trying to turn them into customers you are turning them away at the front door without given them a chance to become customers. Sure some (most) won’t actually buy anything and just browse around but putting up such a barrier will make sure they won’t become a customer.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      They may never get a chance to convert the visiter into a customer again. If they don’t turn into a subscription website and remain advertiser based, how will they ever “convert” you? Would you ever be convinced to whitelist their site?
      - Crosseye_Jack 8y ago
Sir_Substance 8y ago
There are, in order of importance to me, exactly three reasons why I run an ad blocker: 1. Compromised ad networks are one of the most common ways malware is delivered these days. There's been at least one major ad network compromised a year every year for the last 5 years. I don't trust ad network providers to secure their software, which means I cannot trust any website which uses the ad networks. 2. Ads are as much about tracking as they are about promoting. A specific website may get minimal tracking information but the ad networks above the sites are following me around the internet, and the websites are enabling the ad networks by buying into a centralized tracking system. This shows a disdainful and disrespectful attitude towards my privacy. By ignoring this downside to their revenue model, websites are downstreaming their revenue problems onto random passers-by. 3. Most websites really are taking the piss with the amount of ads they show, and it makes their websites load slowly and look like poop, especially on phones. Website owners are starting to focus on #3 and that's nice, but if 2 and 1 aren't dealt with it doesn't matter. Solve the security problem, solve the panopticon problem and solve the aesthetics problem, and then we can talk. Until then, I'm blocking all ads and no amount of shaming will make be care about the problems this causes to people relying on shitty business models. And by the way, solve it as a group. There are billions of websites out there, I don't have enough care in me to bother maintaining a list of good-acting sites and periodically audit them to make sure they haven't relapsed. Obviously I'm just going to block all ads universally, you're a very entitled person if you think I should find enough time in the day to do otherwise. If you're running a site that meets these criteria then great, you're now a community leader. Go put pressure on your peers until enough of them change that I can feel comfortable uninstalling my addons globally.
User23 8y ago
I don’t mind sites that detect my adblocker and refuse to load. It’s their right to control access to their system based on user behavior. I also don’t mind not accessing their content. There are plenty of alternatives.
JeanMarcS 8y ago
One of the french IT news website I read detects adblockers and replace the space of the ad with a message saying, basically, « This space was supposed to be an ad. We respect the fact you block it, consider making a donation » (or something like that, it’s not showing on my phone right now so I guess it’s for the desktop version) I find this very smart. Not intrusive and a bit incentive.
- sleavey 8y ago
  I don't think they detect the ad blocker here - they just put that image underneath the image/iframe of the ad, so that if the top image is blocked, the bottom image is visible.
anotherevan 8y ago
They are not ad blockers, they are HTML firewalls.
your_solution 8y ago
Recently, I encountered arguments to let websites access around one percent of your CPU resources to mine a cryptocurrency, obviously in the users consent. I think this might be a reasonable solution to the "uncreative capitalist". In my situation, I know I could easily spare one percent in exchange for no ads, but I'm sure not everyone would be in that situation.
- sleavey 8y ago
  Diminished mobile phone battery life and environmental concerns are the standard counter-arguments to this approach.
  - thinkingemote 8y ago
    It's also applicable for blocking ads on mobile phones too. They use too much bandwith and CPU, collectively.
happybuy 8y ago
Based upon what our users have said from developing our own ad blocking product; most people actually aren't against ads, what they are against are: - Slowness in web page loading, rendering and UI responsiveness due to excessive ad embeds and excessive usage of Javascript - Losing their privacy by being tracked by ad networks and analytics code; especially across sites and across devices - Auto-playing videos and animations which are excessive and distract from the actual content It's likely that if the adtech industry had self-regulated earlier and shown some restraint then adblockers would never have become popular. For those interested, our adblock product is available for iOS and macOS from https://www.magiclasso.co/ https://www.magiclasso.co/
- DanBC 8y ago
  > Auto-playing videos and animations which are excessive I wonder if I'm in the minority, but I really hate any auto-playing video.
  - happybuy 8y ago
    If you use Safari on iOS or macOS, auto-playing of videos can be disabled in preferences/settings.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
  Interesting. Two questions: Why are iOS adblockers for Safari so rare? The major ones (uBlock and ABP) don’t support Safari. Why do I have to enable notifications to use the app? The explanation given by the welcome screen doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Edit: it looks like ABP does in fact support iOS safari now
  - happybuy 8y ago
    Safari/iOS adblockers need to use a specific Safari content blocking format which is different from the classic ABP format. Presumably the extra work to support this format (and the content blocking extension API) discourages some vendors. Notifications are required as it is the only way to notify the app, and users, when we release updates to our ad blocking rules. Otherwise we would need to release an app update every time a blocking rule needs to change. We update the ad blocking rules generally weekly.
onyva 8y ago
What is the value of content offered on a site that would not have existed if not for AdTech life support? AdTech made it possible and easy revenu has become the main reason to publish online. Publish anything and generate revenue through click baiting, content farms etc. AFAIC there’s no problem if these types of sites will go under, including sites I visit regularly like huffpost, thedailybeast and haartez - which mix some quality content with huge amount of fluff and spam. This model does not work. I’m not going to buy a subscription in order to have adfree experience while being served sponsored content and law quality translations (haaretz has a horrible reputation in that respect) or intentionally provocative content meant to incite rather that encourage debate (again, haaretz.co.il is really shameless in that respect).
bsg75 8y ago
If a site takes to something I perceive as "shaming" or pestering, its more of an incentive to leave the site - not to disable the ad/tracking blocker. I don't disagree that content providers need ways to monetize, and that hosting and bandwidth expenses become problematic them costs exceed revenue, but its interesting that this particular business segment seems to use techniques that most other online businesses would consider toxic to _conversions_. After all, in a time where the end user has some level of control over how their eyeballs can be monitored (however limited), any shaming of potential revenue sources seems counterintuitive.
kup0 8y ago
One of many of the comments on the article itself absolutely nails it: "The real failure of adblock shaming is that, on the occasions where I've complied, I then rediscover why I use adblock -- and turn it back on immediately."

56 points by jesperlang 8y ago

Vaslo 8y ago

Is there a way to hide adblocking from the site so they don’t even know you’re using it?

et-al 8y ago
Not if your browser extension is blocking the remote Javascript code that's used for displaying the ads. And even if you did manage to reverse-engineer an extension to send a "ads loaded" token to the site, their ad network would update their code a week later. That's why folks call it an arms race.
- malka 8y ago
  as long as the user controls what its cpu execute, they have an edge :) It's a losing race for publishers on desktop.
bluedino 8y ago
They’d just make an Adblock detector detector detector
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  There's an ad block detector called "FuckAdblock", so the tool to circumvent it is called "FuckFuckAdblock". There's probably a fuck^3adblock
rightbyte 8y ago
I assume it's theoretically possible to ghost render and and execute tracking scripts in a sandbox? Just need some browser support ...
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  They'd probably run a suite of microbenchmarks in the sandbox and use that performance profile to fingerprint you. That might be an improvement over the status quo, but I think the basic rule is that if you let tracking scripts phone home, you lose.
JohnTHaller 8y ago
The scripts these user detect that you've blocked the ad load. So, there are now adblock lists that block the block detectors. So, there are not adblock detector block detectors. It's an arms race.
dvh 8y ago
Run a browser without adblock in virtual or headless setup with JS on (so that they can e.g. measure size of loaded images) with custom extension that will in read-only way (all code has to be in anonymous function so that it doesn't leak global variables, no changes to dom, no timers or intervals) extract articles and send them somehow out of this virtual so that you can read them. Extracting code would have to be tailor made for each site. IMHO doable. Alternative is copy paste article title to the Google and find news outlet that doesn't block the adblock.
elorant 8y ago
Not with current technology because all ad blocking does is blocking hosts. So a site can tell if parts of the code have loaded/executed or not. In order to go completely stealth you'd have to let the page load everything and then just don't show it. But that's way more complicated and besides a bit pointless because part of the reason for ad blocking is to make sites load faster by removing all that bloatware. That, or we move ad blocking out of the browser and into the OS where sites have absolutely no access whatsoever.
- akerro 8y ago
  >Not with current technology because all ad blocking does is blocking hosts That's funny as first adblockers on Firefox used to just hide divs. Browser was still downloading flash object and images, but was not displaying them
- navbaker 8y ago
  >That, or we move ad blocking out of the browser and into the OS where sites have absolutely no access whatsoever. Interesting concept. Asking as a layman: is this possible? Is the browser sandboxed enough away from the OS that this is a difficult problem? Is that why we haven’t seen solutions that implement this approach?
  - elorant 8y ago
    Possible yes, probable not so much. Building extensions is simpler than building desktop apps. For one you need only JavaScript. While if you move in the OS you'd have to support different versions of systems (you have Windows, OSX, Android, IOS, Linux) and it is much more cumbersome than in the browser.
- gruez 8y ago
  >That, or we move ad blocking out of the browser and into the OS where sites have absolutely no access whatsoever. that's probably overkill. all you need to do is move the adblocking part further back into the rendering pipeline (ie. outside of the DOM) so that javascript can't detect it.
- 8y ago
oweiler 8y ago
https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net
gruez 8y ago
yes, but it will have to operate outside the DOM. currently adblock killer/detection scripts relies on the fact that resources/scripts fail to load (both can be detected), or an element isn't showing (the nag message is hidden under the place where the ad should be). if your browser is dutifully rendering the ads as intended, but blocks it out in the frame buffer, there's nothing the site can do. no such adblocker exists as of yet.
- detaro 8y ago
  Which means you loose a lot if the benefits of an ad blocker, and thus makes it worthwhile to instead invest in the arms race: You have to watch a black screen for the duration of video ads, ads that pop up overlaying content still get in your way, you loose the bandwidth/memory/CPU capacity for loading and rendering them.
  - jungletek 8y ago
    Loose == !Tight Lose == !Win
    - detaro 8y ago
      right, thanks!
hellojason 8y ago
You could setup something at the network level, which zaps requests before they even make it to your computer. Pi-hole [1] works well. Still using it in conjunction with browser-based ad blockers though, but it works for all devices on your network, even smart TVs and Rokus. [1] https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net

pavel_lishin 8y ago

> It’s not that online advertising is inherently good or bad That's definitely an opinion one is entitled to.

yuhong 8y ago

I did mention ad blocking in the essay. In general, the current economy is fundamentally based on extracting more dollars from "consumers".

JohnTHaller 8y ago

I've found that asking nicely without being intrusive gets better results. At PortableApps.com, if you block ads, I have it set to show a single unobtrusive message using the same fonts, colors, and backgrounds as the rest of the site in the area where the first ad would appear. The message says "Please Help Support Us: Please consider white-listing us or making a donation so we can keep bringing you awesome apps. If you recently donated, thank you!" It's designed so that when it appears after detecting that the ad isn't shown, it doesn't make the page jump size/layout wise. In the text, 'white-listing us' links to instructions to whitelist the site and 'making a donation' links to our donations page. The detection script even cleans up the bits of background from hiding the other ads so the page still looks clean. It helps that I have the site setup to only show a single ad above the fold for the majority of users and don't allow popovers, popunders, overlays, sound, etc. Eventually, I'd like to add an option to display a message for donation accounts or something similar, but recurring payments and Drupal don't really play well anymore. The only supported add-on in existence is now Recurly. They're pricing was $1,200 a year but they switched it to "Ask for a Quote" (aka expensive but we don't want to say), so it's not something we'd be able to afford for the number of users.

tlavoie 8y ago
Hi, and thanks for posting the content provider viewpoint. While you're here, I have a question. I'd consider white-listing, but am not willing to white-list ad networks and trackers since they also get misused as a malware vector. Would you consider hosting your own ads? Is that still a thing? Trust isn't transitive, so it's still a problem even if we're OK with you in particular.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  The problem is that you need to be big enough to negotiate your own ad deals. Hosting your own ads isn’t the challenge. Good luck with that.
  - stevesearer 8y ago
    My thinking is that the most difficult part is creating a website where people want to advertise specifically, then connecting with those people, with the easiest part being the actual negotiation stage. For those looking to jump into direct sales and self-hosting, my suggestion is to create a second position of an ad unit you sell through a network and try to sell that without removing your existing ad network unit. Then work to contact the people who advertise on your site through the network and try to sign them up directly. Chances are you can save them money while still bringing in more revenue as you no longer share revenue with the network.

GW150914 8y ago

It doesn’t come off as shaming to me, but rather as begging. Like begging, but without the human element to engender empathy or pity, so you’re just left with disgust. The internet, from “please give us a buck so we can stay up!” to endless crowdfunding resembles nothing quite so much as a collection of beggars rattling their cups and with their stories written on cardboard. If that’s your “business model” then good luck with that, but I don’t feel shame or pity. I’d like to unblock sites, but white listing only makes sense if you can trust whatever they use to serve ads. Unless they’re hostinf their own ads, I’m disinclined to trust their third party providers and trackers, even if I like and trust the site.

egypturnash 8y ago
I submit that it more resembles a collection of street entertainers. Each performs their art for anyone who cares to pay attention, and puts out a tip jar, hoping to make enough money to make it worth continuing to do this instead of giving up and getting a job denying insurance claims or whatever.
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  With the added element of, if you happen to toss a quarter into said jar, it might fire it back and break your laptop. No thanks.
  - manicdee 8y ago
    That's the main reason I block ads.
  - egypturnash 8y ago
    I turned off ads once Patreon was a thing. Haven’t looked back since.

drivingmenuts 8y ago

Well, i got them beat, I’m not ashamed at all. That said, if I visit a site often, then I’ll consider unblocking. But if it’s a one-time visit, nope, gonna block.

pan69 8y ago

To content publishers; It's not the ads I have a problem with, it's the spy-ware tracking behaviour associated with the ads you show is the reason why I'm using an "ad" blocker.

FLUX-YOU 8y ago
Also, occasionally some malicious Javascript gets ran. But ad networks and the sites that host ads won't jump to compensate you for that.
flashman 8y ago
Oh, for me it's totally the ads I have a problem with. They're distracting and I didn't visit the site to see them. I'm not surprised that publishers have resorted to moral appeals to support the business model they've chosen, but I'm not swayed by those appeals either.

UncleEntity 8y ago

> It is a socialist cudgel—something that forces otherwise lazy capitalists to find new and inventive ways to make their creations sustainable. Umm, yeah... Other than pure rent-seeking every single thing under the sun could be considered a "socialist cudgel" by this logic. I honestly don't understand how they are trying to further their argument by using this quote in the article.

wild_preference 8y ago
I don’t even get it. HNers complain about having to subscribe to both Netflix and Hulu. What options does my 10 year old collaborative writing forum for mostly teens have? Now that my ad revenue has died over the years, all that’s left is the charity of me paying out of my pocket. Then we’ll be left with centralized sites like Reddit. I guess is the utopia that HNers envision.

olodus 8y ago

I see it as consumers telling the companies that they went too far. They let the ads take over too much of every page, let them be way too much in your face and let Spyware and other shit in. You simply used up your good-will and need to build it up again if you want to use this as an business model. The only place I've ever seen ads actually work and not be too annoying is in podcasts. They are more personal there and still isn't too much in the way. I've genuinely followed up on some companies podcasts I trust has had ads for. I have no idea how to make that work on the internet though.

alkonaut 8y ago

I’ll block everything with zero sense of shame until sites realize they have to switch to non-tracking/invasive ads. I have zero concern for whether sites think “dumb ads” is a viable business model or not. Obviously I also don’t mind if a big fraction of sites just go under because of it. If your day job is to do work for a company that is funded in any way involving modern “adtech” at any stage, I’m not very sorry for your job loss. I don’t mind ads covering 75% of the page, ads bloating downloads etc. I mind ads that invade my privacy and ads masquerading as non-ads

listenallyall 8y ago
> I’ll block everything Except the content, of course -- that, you expect to consume for free. This is the digital equivalent of saying to a musician, or film actor: because of the existence of a technology that allows me to consume your content for free (Napster / torrents / pirate bay / ad-blockers), I will shed all of my ethics and freely consume all of your music / movies, while at the same time I hope you never get paid and further, I hope the record label / movie studio you work for, goes out of business, all because you dared to show me an ad. Instead, you're saying it to a reporter, journalist or author. But the message is the same. And your final sentence is nonsensical. Generally, ads don't pretend they aren't ads. It's content that "masquerades" as a non-ad. http://brandsandfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/HouseOfCards3_Apple.jpg http://brandsandfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/HouseOf... Heck, HN is an ad for YCombinator masquerading as a news site / discussion forum.
- prepend 8y ago
  There's plenty of content available for "free." There's also plenty of music available for free by musicians who play or donate. There's an assumption in your comment that all content requires some sort of compensation and I don't think that's true, and certainly not necessary for a strong society. I think this may influence your other assumption that it's unethical to freely consume content. The article author uses the example of walking through a city and refusing to look at billboards, but still taking in the view of beautiful architecture. Do you abandon ethics to view architecture? Imagine if the business models of all the businesses in those buildings depended on you looking at the ads. Would you abandon ethics to walk down the street? I think there are some people who are ambivalent if every record label and movie studio shuts down. I don't really care as there is lots of art that is created by people who like giving it away for free. Ever since the start of the net, I've structured my livelihood to specifically avoid being in the business of extracting income from IP. So I think I'm pretty well hedged against people going against their behavior to pay for my IP. I think reporters can be compensated in much better ways than ads, and I actually think that journalism will be better off if not ad supported. Part of the problem we have now is because ads and truth aren't really aligned with the same incentives so I see lots of news sites going more toward ads.

8bitsrule 8y ago

If only some Big Bank would create a secure micropayment experiment, we could experimentally determine whether that could supplant the tracking&ads regime. (At least, for those users that despise ads ... targeted or not.) If the potential rewards for hackers could be kept minimal, it'd not attract interest. The NYTimes has kept their site reasonable, but I don't want to subscribe. I like the idea of paying per-item, not bulk. That lets users encourage the kind of content (and authors) they want to see more of, while generating revenue for the content that Big Papers must provide (regardless of popular interest). WHY this topic is always off-the-radar mystifies me.

diggernet 8y ago
I had hopes for Millicent back around the turn of the century (man I sound old), and my employer at the time had me working on setting it up as a payment system for mp3 downloads. But it just kind of vanished. It's astonishing that all these years later there is still no widely used fractional-cent micropayment system.

alpaca128 8y ago

What I find just as bad are autoplaying videos popping up somewhere at the side or sometimes even staying at the edge of the screen when you scroll. They usually don't get blocked by adblockers and are just as annoying as pop-up ads with sound. I installed a domain block addon just for ensuring I never accidentally visit one of these sites again. There are 1000+ other sites reporting about the same news, I can live without a couple of them.

MrMember 8y ago
This is extra annoying on mobile. Often a quarter of the screen is taken up by a persistent menu bar that I'll never use, half by an autoplaying video that I'll never watch, leaving just a quarter of the screen space for the actual content I was looking for.

Animats 8y ago

When a site whines about being adblocked, I just go to a competing site. Few sites are special snowflakes.

scarface74 8y ago
And the site you left has no reason to care. If you're not paying them and you're not looking at ads, you're not a customer.
- Crosseye_Jack 8y ago
  They may never get a chance to convert the visiter into a customer again. Personally I’ve noted in my head sites that for example give no option to disable tracking cookies. So now when I see news articles from such domains I don’t even bother clicking. Bit of a silly analogy but think about it like a brick and mortar store getting pissed off at you for not looking at the display company X are paying them for. If they can not prove that enough customers are interacting with the display though sales or information requests they won’t be able to sell the space for as much next time. So the B&M has an incentive to get you to engage with the display and you just walk right on past it... Shame on you... So you manager of the store says that you can not browse the rest of his store until you agree to looking at the display. Dunno about you but I wouldn’t want to visit that store again. My point is instead of trying to turn them into customers you are turning them away at the front door without given them a chance to become customers. Sure some (most) won’t actually buy anything and just browse around but putting up such a barrier will make sure they won’t become a customer.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    They may never get a chance to convert the visiter into a customer again. If they don’t turn into a subscription website and remain advertiser based, how will they ever “convert” you? Would you ever be convinced to whitelist their site?
    - Crosseye_Jack 8y ago

Sir_Substance 8y ago

There are, in order of importance to me, exactly three reasons why I run an ad blocker: 1. Compromised ad networks are one of the most common ways malware is delivered these days. There's been at least one major ad network compromised a year every year for the last 5 years. I don't trust ad network providers to secure their software, which means I cannot trust any website which uses the ad networks. 2. Ads are as much about tracking as they are about promoting. A specific website may get minimal tracking information but the ad networks above the sites are following me around the internet, and the websites are enabling the ad networks by buying into a centralized tracking system. This shows a disdainful and disrespectful attitude towards my privacy. By ignoring this downside to their revenue model, websites are downstreaming their revenue problems onto random passers-by. 3. Most websites really are taking the piss with the amount of ads they show, and it makes their websites load slowly and look like poop, especially on phones. Website owners are starting to focus on #3 and that's nice, but if 2 and 1 aren't dealt with it doesn't matter. Solve the security problem, solve the panopticon problem and solve the aesthetics problem, and then we can talk. Until then, I'm blocking all ads and no amount of shaming will make be care about the problems this causes to people relying on shitty business models. And by the way, solve it as a group. There are billions of websites out there, I don't have enough care in me to bother maintaining a list of good-acting sites and periodically audit them to make sure they haven't relapsed. Obviously I'm just going to block all ads universally, you're a very entitled person if you think I should find enough time in the day to do otherwise. If you're running a site that meets these criteria then great, you're now a community leader. Go put pressure on your peers until enough of them change that I can feel comfortable uninstalling my addons globally.

User23 8y ago

I don’t mind sites that detect my adblocker and refuse to load. It’s their right to control access to their system based on user behavior. I also don’t mind not accessing their content. There are plenty of alternatives.

JeanMarcS 8y ago

One of the french IT news website I read detects adblockers and replace the space of the ad with a message saying, basically, « This space was supposed to be an ad. We respect the fact you block it, consider making a donation » (or something like that, it’s not showing on my phone right now so I guess it’s for the desktop version) I find this very smart. Not intrusive and a bit incentive.

sleavey 8y ago
I don't think they detect the ad blocker here - they just put that image underneath the image/iframe of the ad, so that if the top image is blocked, the bottom image is visible.

anotherevan 8y ago

They are not ad blockers, they are HTML firewalls.

your_solution 8y ago

Recently, I encountered arguments to let websites access around one percent of your CPU resources to mine a cryptocurrency, obviously in the users consent. I think this might be a reasonable solution to the "uncreative capitalist". In my situation, I know I could easily spare one percent in exchange for no ads, but I'm sure not everyone would be in that situation.

sleavey 8y ago
Diminished mobile phone battery life and environmental concerns are the standard counter-arguments to this approach.
- thinkingemote 8y ago
  It's also applicable for blocking ads on mobile phones too. They use too much bandwith and CPU, collectively.

happybuy 8y ago

Based upon what our users have said from developing our own ad blocking product; most people actually aren't against ads, what they are against are: - Slowness in web page loading, rendering and UI responsiveness due to excessive ad embeds and excessive usage of Javascript - Losing their privacy by being tracked by ad networks and analytics code; especially across sites and across devices - Auto-playing videos and animations which are excessive and distract from the actual content It's likely that if the adtech industry had self-regulated earlier and shown some restraint then adblockers would never have become popular. For those interested, our adblock product is available for iOS and macOS from https://www.magiclasso.co/ https://www.magiclasso.co/

DanBC 8y ago
> Auto-playing videos and animations which are excessive I wonder if I'm in the minority, but I really hate any auto-playing video.
- happybuy 8y ago
  If you use Safari on iOS or macOS, auto-playing of videos can be disabled in preferences/settings.
SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
Interesting. Two questions: Why are iOS adblockers for Safari so rare? The major ones (uBlock and ABP) don’t support Safari. Why do I have to enable notifications to use the app? The explanation given by the welcome screen doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Edit: it looks like ABP does in fact support iOS safari now
- happybuy 8y ago
  Safari/iOS adblockers need to use a specific Safari content blocking format which is different from the classic ABP format. Presumably the extra work to support this format (and the content blocking extension API) discourages some vendors. Notifications are required as it is the only way to notify the app, and users, when we release updates to our ad blocking rules. Otherwise we would need to release an app update every time a blocking rule needs to change. We update the ad blocking rules generally weekly.

onyva 8y ago

What is the value of content offered on a site that would not have existed if not for AdTech life support? AdTech made it possible and easy revenu has become the main reason to publish online. Publish anything and generate revenue through click baiting, content farms etc. AFAIC there’s no problem if these types of sites will go under, including sites I visit regularly like huffpost, thedailybeast and haartez - which mix some quality content with huge amount of fluff and spam. This model does not work. I’m not going to buy a subscription in order to have adfree experience while being served sponsored content and law quality translations (haaretz has a horrible reputation in that respect) or intentionally provocative content meant to incite rather that encourage debate (again, haaretz.co.il is really shameless in that respect).

bsg75 8y ago

If a site takes to something I perceive as "shaming" or pestering, its more of an incentive to leave the site - not to disable the ad/tracking blocker. I don't disagree that content providers need ways to monetize, and that hosting and bandwidth expenses become problematic them costs exceed revenue, but its interesting that this particular business segment seems to use techniques that most other online businesses would consider toxic to _conversions_. After all, in a time where the end user has some level of control over how their eyeballs can be monitored (however limited), any shaming of potential revenue sources seems counterintuitive.

kup0 8y ago

One of many of the comments on the article itself absolutely nails it: "The real failure of adblock shaming is that, on the occasions where I've complied, I then rediscover why I use adblock -- and turn it back on immediately."