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I disagree. The tech crowd is using adblockers to prevent spying and resource consumption. But majority of people running adblockers just don't want to see ads.
by yoz-y 7y ago
I disagree. The tech crowd is using adblockers to prevent spying and resource consumption. But majority of people running adblockers just don't want to see ads.
- noobermin 7y agoI think the reality is more complicated. People sort of suspect being spied on, but it's hidden, not so real. It's abstract so if you ask any reasonable person, they'll say they don't like the spying, but few will take an impairment in function for something they use in order to avoid it because it seems somewhat distant.
- BonesJustice 7y agoIn most cases, I don’t think it’s ads as concept that’s the problem. If websites only had static ads in the sidebar, I question how many people would bother with ad blockers. But when ads block content; include flashing animations, audio, and video; and take up more layout space on a site than the actual content; then people have had enough.
- umanwizard 7y agoAre you disagreeing with the person you replied to? Your tone suggests that you are, but the content of your post seems to being agreeing.
- BonesJustice 7y agoI disagree that most people use ad blockers because they “don’t want to see [any] ads.” Meaning, if advertisers hadn’t built more and more intrusive ads and had stuck with static ads that don’t severely harm the UX, then I doubt most users would bother with ad blockers.
- umanwizard 7y agoI think you are misinterpreting the comment you're replying to. It's arguing that people block ads because they dislike seeing the ads they're seeing (as opposed to for privacy or resource usage concerns), not because they dislike all possible ads, which is what you're arguing against.
- Gibbon1 7y agoYeah no one would care about magazine style ads with an ordinary click through link. Especially if clicking resulting something useful instead of being the browsing equivalent of jumping into a dumpster fire. The advertiser arms race has resulted in a classic tragedy of the commons. That's my diagnosis of the problem. Traditionally regulation is needed to fix that. Exactly what that entails is beyond me.
- mikro2nd 7y agoNo, some of us block ads because we don't want to ever see any ads. Ever. At all.
- vokep 7y agoThat doesn't mean the side-effect of most people avoiding spying at the same time is somehow an unwanted one. I think most can agree here this level of spying on users is bad. Its sorta like child labor but a lot less obviously bad, in that it is obviously bad, nobody likes it, but there's enough taking advantage of it not being illegal, so its just socially tolerated thing. But once made illegal it will be looked back on like "how the hell did we think that was okay? how the hell did we willingly let it occur?"
- hysan 7y agoI don’t think it’s ever going to be so simple that we can bucket all non-tech users together. I occasionally volunteer as IT support for a small non-profit where everyone is non-technical and in many cases old. Their understanding of browsers were: - Chrome is the fast one. - IE is the one that have to use for some government/old websites. - Ad Blockers are for safety (akin to anti-virus). This was from a group that didn’t even know how to install Chrome on the new computers they got this year. Group knowledge on this topic is largely going to be driven by what they’ve heard in the news or perpetuated by their social circles. And scary things will stick for long after they stop being true.
- Marsymars 7y agoAnecdotally, that's the case for me. I've been blocking ads since ~2000 because I don't like ads. It's only more recently that I've really stepped up efforts by not allowing third party scripts, using temporary/multi-account containers, using Decentraleyes, stripping identifiers from query strings, etc.