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The majority of people don't use an adblocker (otherwise the ad based ecosystem would not work) and if you ask them if they want to pay for the sites they visit

The majority of people don't use an adblocker (otherwise the ad based ecosystem would not work) and if you ask them if they want to pay for the sites they visit instead of seeing ads then most of them choose free with ads. One visits lots of sites while browsing and paying for each of them is simply not feasible. The solution would be some kind of universal micropayment scheme, but it's unclear how such a sytem could be adopted universally, because making the users setting up multiple micropayment providers in their browsers will not work.

reificator 8y ago
But when ads are so user-hostile that they sometimes include malware, that's when I lose sympathy for the ad-supported web.
- dmortin 8y ago
  Ad networks strive to filter these out, so it's not an argument against ads. Otherwise, you could say let's not use, for example, app stores, because sometimes malicious apps can get through the checks.
  - strken 8y ago
    I would really like to avoid app stores, too. Unfortunately F-Droid has been unreliable for me - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ is down right now, for instance.
  - reificator 8y ago
    Having an extra layer of filtering is good, but time has shown it to be less effective than adblocking. Your app store example is a non-sequitur, because users want to download apps. Users in the general case do not specifically want ads.
    - dmortin 8y ago
      > Users in the general case do not specifically want ads. True, but users want to access content for free, they don't want to pay for every site they visit. And currently it's only possible with ads. And most users rather bear ads than pay. If everyone uses an adblocker then most sites will either close or become paid.
  - danShumway 8y ago
    The difference is that app stores are pull-only. I have a subset of apps I allow on my phone, and random ones aren't downloaded every time I open it up. With websites, you don't get to pre-approve the ads that get downloaded, and since these adds are auctioned dynamically, you can't even say that one website is safe or unsafe. If you want to make an analogy with app stores, visiting a website that's hooked up to an ad network is more like opening the Google Play store, entering a random search, and then clicking install on whatever the first result is. Yes, the web has better sandboxing than Android, but that's still a wild thing for any user to consent to. When I installed the Play Store on my phone, I wasn't agreeing to give every single app it hosts access to my device. But that's what ad networks essentially force me to do.
gsich 8y ago
So every site with "disable your adblocker" will display the message just because a "majority" doesn't use them? I find that doubtful. Adblockers are impacting revenue from a considerable amount of users, otherwise there wouldn't be such messages.
- dmortin 8y ago
  They try different solutions, before the impact gets bigger. I guess Chrome will introduce sometime in the future a disable ad blocker feature, so sites can ask the user to disable the ad blocker to continue and the browser will pop up a confirmation for the user, so the user can simply choose Allow without knowing the technical details of how to disable the ad blocker.

reificator 8y ago

But when ads are so user-hostile that they sometimes include malware, that's when I lose sympathy for the ad-supported web.

dmortin 8y ago
Ad networks strive to filter these out, so it's not an argument against ads. Otherwise, you could say let's not use, for example, app stores, because sometimes malicious apps can get through the checks.
- strken 8y ago
  I would really like to avoid app stores, too. Unfortunately F-Droid has been unreliable for me - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ is down right now, for instance.
- reificator 8y ago
  Having an extra layer of filtering is good, but time has shown it to be less effective than adblocking. Your app store example is a non-sequitur, because users want to download apps. Users in the general case do not specifically want ads.
  - dmortin 8y ago
    > Users in the general case do not specifically want ads. True, but users want to access content for free, they don't want to pay for every site they visit. And currently it's only possible with ads. And most users rather bear ads than pay. If everyone uses an adblocker then most sites will either close or become paid.
- danShumway 8y ago
  The difference is that app stores are pull-only. I have a subset of apps I allow on my phone, and random ones aren't downloaded every time I open it up. With websites, you don't get to pre-approve the ads that get downloaded, and since these adds are auctioned dynamically, you can't even say that one website is safe or unsafe. If you want to make an analogy with app stores, visiting a website that's hooked up to an ad network is more like opening the Google Play store, entering a random search, and then clicking install on whatever the first result is. Yes, the web has better sandboxing than Android, but that's still a wild thing for any user to consent to. When I installed the Play Store on my phone, I wasn't agreeing to give every single app it hosts access to my device. But that's what ad networks essentially force me to do.

gsich 8y ago

So every site with "disable your adblocker" will display the message just because a "majority" doesn't use them? I find that doubtful. Adblockers are impacting revenue from a considerable amount of users, otherwise there wouldn't be such messages.

dmortin 8y ago
They try different solutions, before the impact gets bigger. I guess Chrome will introduce sometime in the future a disable ad blocker feature, so sites can ask the user to disable the ad blocker to continue and the browser will pop up a confirmation for the user, so the user can simply choose Allow without knowing the technical details of how to disable the ad blocker.