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There is only so much people will put up with, and it seems that we're inundated with advertising from all sides. When most ads were in print, it was easy to av

There is only so much people will put up with, and it seems that we're inundated with advertising from all sides. When most ads were in print, it was easy to avoid them, but now they are forced into every electronic media stream available. On the web, I have never used an ad blocker and have just closed the page if the advertising gets to be too much in my face. It seems that it is getting worse all the time, because it is a war between the advertisers and ad blockers and people like me are stuck in the middle. And then YouTube is showing longer ads every day, with many in the 5 minute range. And when you're trying to watch a video that is only 3 minutes long, why would you watch a 5 minute advertisement?... it doesn't make any sense.

dazc 7y ago
Attribution is the problem. Lots of ad spend is a waste of money and, despite the advent of various tracking technologies, advertisers still don't seem to know which ads are actually bringing in the sales. This, of course, isn't a problem for the third-parties providing all this tracking because they get their slice regardless.
- buboard 7y ago
  This is the gist of the issue. Ad companies sell advertisers tracking and reporting, not real return of investment. I bet an ad agency could beat google by throwing up vast dashboards with tons of nonsense graphs.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  The easiest and arguably best way to do that is coupon or promo codes per advertiser but that involves taking a haircut to the profit per item on top of the nominal ad expenses.
  - dazc 7y ago
    ...and a fee for the 99% of sales you already had in the bag before your customer launched his search for a coupon code.
visarga 7y ago
For Youtube it makes sense to pay. I did the jump and it was worth it - no ads, play music with locked screen on the phone.
- TheCapeGreek 7y ago
  Firefox on Android + "Video Background Play Fix" addon already bypass the locked screen/app not in focus "feature".
  - maest 7y ago
    Or NewPipe (https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/), but it does require you to have FDroid (which is not a bad thing in itself, just adds a bit more friction)
- rumori 7y ago
  It almost looks like Youtube intentionally raised the number and length of ads before and after videos while heavily pushing Youtube premium alerts to make people sign up for their subscription. No matter what you do, they win.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    > "No matter what you do, they win." What if what you do is use youtube-dl?
    - kds3 7y ago
      They can just suspend your account. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759
      - catalogia 7y ago
        They theoretically could, but there is no real reason to think it actually happened to that guy. His story is full of holes, and furthermore tons of people use youtube-dl daily while only this single guy claims to have been banned.
cyborgx7 7y ago
>On the web, I have never used an ad blocker Why? My recommendation to every single person is to install an adblocker right now and never ever turn it off again. It's such an easy thing to do which immediately significantly improves your quality of life.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Personally? I'm willing to watch or see an advert for a newspaper, YouTuber (especially this!) or small blogger. Usually I use my adblocker's counter as a measure of how awful a page is and if it's reasonable I'll turn it off.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    Malware is frequently delivered by advertising, so there's good reason to keep your ad blocker on even on sites that you want to support. Tracking is yet another thing you can avoid to some degree by using an ad blocker (and, better yet, by disabling javascript). Finally, the best reason to use an ad blocker is to opt-out of the advertising ecosystem to make it less viable. We have to find a more ethical way to fund media than supporting this manipulative, privacy-invading industry.
- gwd 7y ago
  > Why? My recommendation to every single person is to install an adblocker right now and never ever turn it off again. It's such an easy thing to do which immediately significantly improves your quality of life. The same reason that if I go into a cafe to sit down for a while, I'll buy a drink even if I'm not particularly thirsty. The cost of having a table in a downtown location for you to sit at is far higher than the cost of the beans and water; a drink for a place to sit is part of the "implicit deal". Websites cost money to run, so I think it's only fair to accept a reasonable amount of advertising. But I don't think being silently tracked for just happening upon your website is fair, so I block trackers. If your advertising works without trackers, I'll see it just fine.
  - cyborgx7 7y ago
opencl 7y ago
Even the print ads seem to have gotten way more intrusive over the past few years. Amazon puts ads on their shipping boxes. I got a fortune cookie in a restaurant the other day with an ad printed on the back of the fortune!
kyle-rb 7y ago
>And then YouTube is showing longer ads every day, with many in the 5 minute range. Uhhh, can't you can press 'skip' after 5 seconds? I've never seen an unskippable YouTube ad longer than 30 seconds. Although yes, they are upping amount of ads: a couple months ago they started doing two back to back pre-roll ads every once in a while.

dazc 7y ago

Attribution is the problem. Lots of ad spend is a waste of money and, despite the advent of various tracking technologies, advertisers still don't seem to know which ads are actually bringing in the sales. This, of course, isn't a problem for the third-parties providing all this tracking because they get their slice regardless.

buboard 7y ago
This is the gist of the issue. Ad companies sell advertisers tracking and reporting, not real return of investment. I bet an ad agency could beat google by throwing up vast dashboards with tons of nonsense graphs.
Nasrudith 7y ago
The easiest and arguably best way to do that is coupon or promo codes per advertiser but that involves taking a haircut to the profit per item on top of the nominal ad expenses.
- dazc 7y ago
  ...and a fee for the 99% of sales you already had in the bag before your customer launched his search for a coupon code.

visarga 7y ago

For Youtube it makes sense to pay. I did the jump and it was worth it - no ads, play music with locked screen on the phone.

TheCapeGreek 7y ago
Firefox on Android + "Video Background Play Fix" addon already bypass the locked screen/app not in focus "feature".
- maest 7y ago
  Or NewPipe (https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/), but it does require you to have FDroid (which is not a bad thing in itself, just adds a bit more friction)
rumori 7y ago
It almost looks like Youtube intentionally raised the number and length of ads before and after videos while heavily pushing Youtube premium alerts to make people sign up for their subscription. No matter what you do, they win.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > "No matter what you do, they win." What if what you do is use youtube-dl?
  - kds3 7y ago
    They can just suspend your account. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759
    - catalogia 7y ago
      They theoretically could, but there is no real reason to think it actually happened to that guy. His story is full of holes, and furthermore tons of people use youtube-dl daily while only this single guy claims to have been banned.

cyborgx7 7y ago

>On the web, I have never used an ad blocker Why? My recommendation to every single person is to install an adblocker right now and never ever turn it off again. It's such an easy thing to do which immediately significantly improves your quality of life.

cameronbrown 7y ago
Personally? I'm willing to watch or see an advert for a newspaper, YouTuber (especially this!) or small blogger. Usually I use my adblocker's counter as a measure of how awful a page is and if it's reasonable I'll turn it off.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  Malware is frequently delivered by advertising, so there's good reason to keep your ad blocker on even on sites that you want to support. Tracking is yet another thing you can avoid to some degree by using an ad blocker (and, better yet, by disabling javascript). Finally, the best reason to use an ad blocker is to opt-out of the advertising ecosystem to make it less viable. We have to find a more ethical way to fund media than supporting this manipulative, privacy-invading industry.
gwd 7y ago
> Why? My recommendation to every single person is to install an adblocker right now and never ever turn it off again. It's such an easy thing to do which immediately significantly improves your quality of life. The same reason that if I go into a cafe to sit down for a while, I'll buy a drink even if I'm not particularly thirsty. The cost of having a table in a downtown location for you to sit at is far higher than the cost of the beans and water; a drink for a place to sit is part of the "implicit deal". Websites cost money to run, so I think it's only fair to accept a reasonable amount of advertising. But I don't think being silently tracked for just happening upon your website is fair, so I block trackers. If your advertising works without trackers, I'll see it just fine.
- cyborgx7 7y ago

opencl 7y ago

Even the print ads seem to have gotten way more intrusive over the past few years. Amazon puts ads on their shipping boxes. I got a fortune cookie in a restaurant the other day with an ad printed on the back of the fortune!

kyle-rb 7y ago

>And then YouTube is showing longer ads every day, with many in the 5 minute range. Uhhh, can't you can press 'skip' after 5 seconds? I've never seen an unskippable YouTube ad longer than 30 seconds. Although yes, they are upping amount of ads: a couple months ago they started doing two back to back pre-roll ads every once in a while.