7 ms·

Finally, someone is talking sense about these shitty Taboola, Outbrain clickbait ads. I have all the reputed news sites asking me to disable adblockers only to

Finally, someone is talking sense about these shitty Taboola, Outbrain clickbait ads. I have all the reputed news sites asking me to disable adblockers only to be shown the scum links from Taboola and Outbrain. Most times ads from Taboola and Outbrain keep showing up even when i specifically disable those divs.

noneeeed 7y ago
I am constantly surprised how many "reputable" sites stick these bottom-feeders on their page. I feel like it must impact readers' perception of those sites when they are trying to be all highbrow, and then the bottom of an article is stuffed with crap that most tabloids wouldn't publish.
- joaodlf 7y ago
  Because they have bills and wages to pay. They more than likely have tried different methods of monetisation as well, it just didn't work as well. Which is why this field is in dire need fir reinvention. It's terrible, but it works. The challenge is making it work, without being terrible.
  - mevile 7y ago
    > Because they have bills and wages to pay. That's a rationalization that works for all kinds of terrible things. It's never good enough to excuse the behavior. It's a terrible product, a terrible experience, and nobody benefits from it except these companies and the people responsible for revenue at whatever publisher is infested with these ads. I work at an ad supported site, we trialed these things and I'm sure that any of the journalists at places that have these things hate this crap as much as their users do but they don't have any say over its inclusion. It's some finance person, running the numbers.
    - joaodlf 7y ago
      So what should the "finance" person do? Stop thinking in a financial way? Pretty sure the journalists like having a job, too. These ads are there because they work, savvy users might not like them, you don't, I don't. It's time for new players to step up and disrupt this market, but not if that means a loss for businesses. That's the challenge.
      - majewsky 7y ago
        The "finance person" should start thinking beyond the current quarter, and recognize the long-term damage they're inflicting on their brand by associating it with shitty garbage content.
      - kabwj 7y ago
        If you are forced to resort to these things to survive maybe you should do something else. Maybe these journalists should learn to code.
        mean_jean 7y ago
        I'm a coder journalists. I could make a lot more outside of journalism but I believe in the mission as do the traditional journalists. We don't just like having jobs - we do it because our democracy and society wouldn't work as well without it. Sometimes there are trade offs made to pay the bills so we can do the work that matters. It's not ideal but the whole industry is just trying to keep their heads above water right now.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Grow a backbone? We're not talking about whether the CTA button should be light blue or dark blue. We're talking about decision to unleash some of the worst garbage Internet has on unsuspecting and unwilling people. It hurts individuals, and drags down both the industry and the society at large. Someone in the company should be able to say "no" to that. The author of the article described some of the consequences, strongly implying but stopping short of saying one thing out loud, so I'll say it here: chumboxes are unethical products, and showing chumboxes is unethical behaviour too. (But yeah, I do understand competitive pressure. That's why I hope we eventually get around to killing Taboola and friends through regulatory means.)
    - reallydude 7y ago
      > It's never good enough to excuse the behavior. The behavior of click-bait ads isn't terrible in a way that should cause someone to question their own ethics. You may disagree. So what? You aren't going to fix the human condition by drawing a line in the sand, nor would it be moral to do so. The price of skepticism is uncertainty and the price of certainty is extortion (in terms of clicks and attention).
      - mevile 7y ago
        I worked on the Ask Toolbar and it definitely caused me to question my ethics. I felt like shit about it because I wasn't creating something I was proud of, something that other people I knew and cared about would think well of. I quit that job and moved on to something better. I would not include such bad behavior from some bad actors as part of the "human condition" but outliers on the fringe because I believe most people want to be good and do good things, but apparently not these assholes.
        reallydude 7y ago
        > I would not include such bad behavior from some bad actors as part of the "human condition" It is. You take the good with the bad. There's not a lot of evidence this is "bad" within that spectrum. It's very subjective, since I never had to question my ethics when working in advertising. There are things I will do and things I won't, but I don't champion the eradication of those things I won't do.
    - troyvit 7y ago
      "rationalization that works for all kinds of terrible things?" This isn't a concentration camp, it's ads at the bottom of a page that you can choose to ignore, either by literally ignoring them or installing an ad blocker. I work for an advertiser and believe it or not I know people who directly benefited from some of the ads. There's bad ads, even "terrible" ads, but in the end they're just ads.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    The shit quality of Taboola ads made reenable my adblock on one of the only website where I had disabled it. I couldn't just support a website that put such crap before my eyes.
  - have_faith 7y ago
    The reason most monetisation models don't work is because the vast majority of content produced by these outlets is not worth anything. Hence why no monetisation strategy can part anyone with their money. There's nothing to reinvent.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  I'm sure they use the "it's a third party, we have no control over it" defense. Whoever pays the site pays a middleman who pays a middleman who pays another middleman that loads bottom feeder ads, malware, auto playing video, and of course JS exploits.
ing33k 7y ago
one of the main reasons why publishers stick with them is because these networks give the publishers minimum guranteed deals.
wastedhours 7y ago
Can't remember which one we used, but they're terrible for engagement as well - we had to pull a native campaign as we were seeing (if not ad fraud) then utterly awful engagement rates. Average under a second time on page, lots of useless sites in the referral list, lots of "clicks". I'm guessing publishers love them as they seem to get people to click on the ads, but eventually any reputable advertisers will wise up and get out of there.
- dalbasal 7y ago
  It's a fast narrowing funnel. Lots of advertisers try it. It works well for very few. The few campaigns that work well scale massively. That's why ads are so repetitive for users. "Advertiser" is also an overstatement as this article explains. Most are doing as arbitrage.
tomjen3 7y ago
I have started to simply turn of JavaScript for those sites that either give me any grief about adblockers or show gdpr opt outs.
ForHackernews 7y ago
It's all garbage. I don't get why anyone thinks these ads are any worse than any other online adverts. If anything, they're less creepy because they're generic clickbait and they don't appear to be tracking me or targeting me personally.

noneeeed 7y ago

I am constantly surprised how many "reputable" sites stick these bottom-feeders on their page. I feel like it must impact readers' perception of those sites when they are trying to be all highbrow, and then the bottom of an article is stuffed with crap that most tabloids wouldn't publish.

joaodlf 7y ago
Because they have bills and wages to pay. They more than likely have tried different methods of monetisation as well, it just didn't work as well. Which is why this field is in dire need fir reinvention. It's terrible, but it works. The challenge is making it work, without being terrible.
- mevile 7y ago
  > Because they have bills and wages to pay. That's a rationalization that works for all kinds of terrible things. It's never good enough to excuse the behavior. It's a terrible product, a terrible experience, and nobody benefits from it except these companies and the people responsible for revenue at whatever publisher is infested with these ads. I work at an ad supported site, we trialed these things and I'm sure that any of the journalists at places that have these things hate this crap as much as their users do but they don't have any say over its inclusion. It's some finance person, running the numbers.
  - joaodlf 7y ago
    So what should the "finance" person do? Stop thinking in a financial way? Pretty sure the journalists like having a job, too. These ads are there because they work, savvy users might not like them, you don't, I don't. It's time for new players to step up and disrupt this market, but not if that means a loss for businesses. That's the challenge.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      The "finance person" should start thinking beyond the current quarter, and recognize the long-term damage they're inflicting on their brand by associating it with shitty garbage content.
    - kabwj 7y ago
      If you are forced to resort to these things to survive maybe you should do something else. Maybe these journalists should learn to code.
      - mean_jean 7y ago
        I'm a coder journalists. I could make a lot more outside of journalism but I believe in the mission as do the traditional journalists. We don't just like having jobs - we do it because our democracy and society wouldn't work as well without it. Sometimes there are trade offs made to pay the bills so we can do the work that matters. It's not ideal but the whole industry is just trying to keep their heads above water right now.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Grow a backbone? We're not talking about whether the CTA button should be light blue or dark blue. We're talking about decision to unleash some of the worst garbage Internet has on unsuspecting and unwilling people. It hurts individuals, and drags down both the industry and the society at large. Someone in the company should be able to say "no" to that. The author of the article described some of the consequences, strongly implying but stopping short of saying one thing out loud, so I'll say it here: chumboxes are unethical products, and showing chumboxes is unethical behaviour too. (But yeah, I do understand competitive pressure. That's why I hope we eventually get around to killing Taboola and friends through regulatory means.)
  - reallydude 7y ago
    > It's never good enough to excuse the behavior. The behavior of click-bait ads isn't terrible in a way that should cause someone to question their own ethics. You may disagree. So what? You aren't going to fix the human condition by drawing a line in the sand, nor would it be moral to do so. The price of skepticism is uncertainty and the price of certainty is extortion (in terms of clicks and attention).
    - mevile 7y ago
      I worked on the Ask Toolbar and it definitely caused me to question my ethics. I felt like shit about it because I wasn't creating something I was proud of, something that other people I knew and cared about would think well of. I quit that job and moved on to something better. I would not include such bad behavior from some bad actors as part of the "human condition" but outliers on the fringe because I believe most people want to be good and do good things, but apparently not these assholes.
      - reallydude 7y ago
        > I would not include such bad behavior from some bad actors as part of the "human condition" It is. You take the good with the bad. There's not a lot of evidence this is "bad" within that spectrum. It's very subjective, since I never had to question my ethics when working in advertising. There are things I will do and things I won't, but I don't champion the eradication of those things I won't do.
  - troyvit 7y ago
    "rationalization that works for all kinds of terrible things?" This isn't a concentration camp, it's ads at the bottom of a page that you can choose to ignore, either by literally ignoring them or installing an ad blocker. I work for an advertiser and believe it or not I know people who directly benefited from some of the ads. There's bad ads, even "terrible" ads, but in the end they're just ads.
- baud147258 7y ago
  The shit quality of Taboola ads made reenable my adblock on one of the only website where I had disabled it. I couldn't just support a website that put such crap before my eyes.
- have_faith 7y ago
  The reason most monetisation models don't work is because the vast majority of content produced by these outlets is not worth anything. Hence why no monetisation strategy can part anyone with their money. There's nothing to reinvent.
JudgeWapner 7y ago
I'm sure they use the "it's a third party, we have no control over it" defense. Whoever pays the site pays a middleman who pays a middleman who pays another middleman that loads bottom feeder ads, malware, auto playing video, and of course JS exploits.

ing33k 7y ago

one of the main reasons why publishers stick with them is because these networks give the publishers minimum guranteed deals.

wastedhours 7y ago

Can't remember which one we used, but they're terrible for engagement as well - we had to pull a native campaign as we were seeing (if not ad fraud) then utterly awful engagement rates. Average under a second time on page, lots of useless sites in the referral list, lots of "clicks". I'm guessing publishers love them as they seem to get people to click on the ads, but eventually any reputable advertisers will wise up and get out of there.

dalbasal 7y ago
It's a fast narrowing funnel. Lots of advertisers try it. It works well for very few. The few campaigns that work well scale massively. That's why ads are so repetitive for users. "Advertiser" is also an overstatement as this article explains. Most are doing as arbitrage.

tomjen3 7y ago

I have started to simply turn of JavaScript for those sites that either give me any grief about adblockers or show gdpr opt outs.

ForHackernews 7y ago

It's all garbage. I don't get why anyone thinks these ads are any worse than any other online adverts. If anything, they're less creepy because they're generic clickbait and they don't appear to be tracking me or targeting me personally.