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The fastest ads are the ones that never load at all. Not sorry Google, that ship has sailed long ago when ads became a delivery mechanism for malware and tracki

The fastest ads are the ones that never load at all. Not sorry Google, that ship has sailed long ago when ads became a delivery mechanism for malware and tracking. > Since fast ads result in improved user experience metrics, a focus on improving ad speed may decrease the incentive for users to install ad blockers. I think making this conclusion from the data in the linked adblock report is a bizarre interpretation of that data.

robbrown451 7y ago
I get it that you (and many here) don't like ads, what do you mean by "that ship sailed long ago"? That Google should just close up shop and go home? Advertising exists. You can't make it go away. You can make it less bothersome to most people. And I'm having trouble understanding how you say their conclusion (which simply said it "may" decrease the incentive) is so bizarre. Are you assuming that everyone out there views ads the way you do?
- journalctl 7y ago
  You can’t make it go away? Who made it in the first place? The natural state of the universe is no advertising. It’s not as though a “You’re the 1,000,000th visitor to this site!” banners popped into existence three femtoseconds after the Big Bang.
  - katzgrau 7y ago
    I'd disagree. Advertising exists in very subtle forms such as mere persuasion and even more subtly, plain information. The background radiation present in the cosmos advertises the big bang's existence.
    - labster 7y ago
      I’m still waiting for the 2-for-the-price-of-1 sale on Big Bangs before I buy.
    - journalctl 7y ago
      whoosh My point was that advertising doesn’t need to exist in its current state. It’s not some immutable facet of the universe that Google tracks us everywhere and then directs targeted crap at us.
    - danharaj 7y ago
      Are you being obtuse on purpose?
  - crispinb 7y ago
    Quite. It's only a cultural production. We certainly can make it go away. It's an critical part of an ecocidal system of production that is incompatible with a living planet. It's also incompatible with healthy, clear-seeing minds. Was it Adbusters who referred to marketing as 'mental pollution'? That almost seems too narrow - I think of it as a cognitive & cultural pollution: the manufacture of desire, for the purpose of cancerous & unsustainable fake economic 'growth'. It will have to go.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    "The natural state of the universe is no advertising" Tell that to a peacock.
- satori99 7y ago
  > Advertising exists. You can't make it go away. That sounds like a challenge. :) FWIW I agree with OP, I block all ads, where ever I can. On web pages, and even when streaming live TV. I have never agreed to view ads in exchange for viewing content. Advertisers and site masters may think there is a self evident implied agreement, but I do not. Advertising, no matter how or why it is served, always tries to steal your attention and force a mental context switch. Filtering this out using your mind is just tiresome and frustrating.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    I'm not saying that you can't make advertising go away for yourself, if you try hard enough. But I don't think you, or you and all the other people of your mindset, can make it go away altogether. I don't use adblockers, but I can't blame people who do. I'm not convinced the world would be better if everyone did. I do wish that there was legislation that required all ad supported web sites to have reasonably priced plans where people could pay to bypass the ads. Or something. But right now ads support a lot of services that I am glad are here.
    - satori99 7y ago
      > But I don't think you [...] can make it go away altogether. If we can train neural networks to recognize things, then I don't see why those things can't be ads. Carl Sagan hypothesized a little about this in his 1985 novel Contact. Years before, he had invented a module that, when a television commercial appeared, automatically muted the sound. It wasn't at first a context-recognition device. Instead, it simply monitored the amplitude of the carrier wave... Before there could be any coordinated response from the television advertising industry, Adnix had become wildly popular. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Q6o51-W_z8MC&pg=PA226&dq=Adnix&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFw7L0hMblAhWX8XMBHR64AaUQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Adnix&f=false https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Q6o51-W_z8MC&pg=PA226&d...
      - robbrown451 7y ago
        You sound like you are simply talking about ad blockers, which says to me you are missing the point. Not everyone will choose to use ad blockers. Also, if you do that effectively enough, you end up with people sneaking the ads into the content, as opposed to clear delineations between ads and content. Do you prefer that? Regardless, ads are here and a big part of the economy of the web. If I were Google, I would simply ignore the people who are so extreme that they can't see value in their attempts to reduce the annoyance factor of web advertising. Personally, I am ok with ads that do not significantly slow down the page, are very clear that they are ads, don't block content, and don't make me wait for content. I don't even mind if they have tracked me, although I'd prefer if I had some degree of control over that. On a web site I like, I am glad that the site owner gets a few pennies for my use of the site. I see a lot of ads -- often from Amazon -- for things like skateboard / roller skate parts, digital pianos, and "maker" things like Dremel tools. Sometimes I ignore them, but sometimes I look at them just like I would if I walked by that sort of thing in a retail environment: they catch my eye because they are things I like. Admittedly, sometimes I see ads for things like women's swimsuits or the like. Probably because, in a moment of weakness, I clicked on an ad to see a larger photo of a pretty woman in a swimsuit. I'd kind of like to be able to say "I'm not interested in this sort of ad," but then again, I really don't care that much. I suspect you can't wrap your head around my attitude, but that's what it is.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  > Are you assuming that everyone out there views ads the way you do? I think 99.9% of ad block users who understand what ad blocking is would agree that they would not start unblocking ads because they loaded faster.
- akersten 7y ago
  > what do you mean by "that ship sailed long ago"? That Google should just close up shop and go home? If that's the only alternative that the brilliant minds at the Big G can come up with, then that sounds fine to me. I'm sure they can think of something more creative though, like "make a product and sell it." Without the snark, what I mean specifically is that I will never browse the web without an adblocker, no matter how "fast", "clean from malware", "acceptable", or "organic and free-range" Google claims their ads are. It's just out of the question. They take up my bandwidth, use my device battery power, execute code on my machine that I don't need, jeopardize my privacy, and put my operational security at risk. I personally also think advertising is distasteful and manipulative. So, I empower myself to prevent this unwanted interference to my mental and digital autonomy to the greatest possible extent. I don't really sympathize with sites that "rely" on ad revenue either. The Web existed before them, the Web will exist after them. > And I'm having trouble understanding how you say their conclusion (which simply said it "may" decrease the incentive) is so bizarre. Are you assuming that everyone out there views ads the way you do? I made a different comment about why the conclusion is bizarre to me: I don't think ad-block users are sensitive to changes in ad speed, that they wouldn't be able to notice in the first place on account of using an ad-blocker. Non-ad-block users probably don't care in the first place, and if they do, they install an ad-blocker for the myriad other reasons that happen to include speed.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    > The Web existed before them, the Web will exist after them. That's a bit more black and white that my view. I don't care if the web "exists" per se, I don't think I'd use if very much if it was still like it was in 1995. >I don't think ad-block users are sensitive to changes in ad speed, that they wouldn't be able to notice in the first place on account of using an ad-blocker. Wait, so you are only considering in the equation people who are currently already using ad blockers? Ummm, ok. It seems weird that I have to say this, but I think the idea is that every person who uses an ad blocker was once a person who didn't use an ad blocker, and that there is some threshold of annoyance that must be surpassed before they typically install an ad blocker. I don't think Google's attempt to speed up ads is intended to improve the experience for those who are already using ad blockers. Is this not obvious, or am I missing something?
- CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
  > Advertising exists. You can't make it go away. You could make them illegal. I guess there’s some principle of free speech that’s in conflict with that approach. But it’s an interesting thought to play around with, how would the world change if ads were illegal...
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    Who is "you"? My point in saying "you can't make it go away" was not that, if everyone in the world agreed that we should not have ads, that we as a human race couldn't get rid of them. My point is that that is not going to happen. Or at least, it isn't going to happen suddenly. When a big internet advertising company encourages advertisers to make their ads less bothersome, and it is met with "but we want no ads at all," I just don't see how that is helpful.
ehsankia 7y ago
> I think making this conclusion from the data in the linked adblock report is a bizarre interpretation of that data. How so? One of the big pros every ad blocker advertises is "faster page loads". Slow page loads is very much an incentive to get an ad blocker. It's just how Google working with betterads.org to implement an Ad Blocker for outrageous ads in Chrome.
- akersten 7y ago
  >> > I think making this conclusion from the data in the linked adblock report is a bizarre interpretation of that data. > How so? One of the big pros every ad blocker advertises is "faster page loads" Without getting too much into how questionable I find the copy of the source site (pagefair): There's no dose-response here. It's not like ads getting 50ms faster, there's some percentage of ad-block users that convert to non-ad-block. The activation energy to go from non-ad-block to ad-block is so much lower than it is to go the other way around. How often do you turn off your ad-blocker just to check how fast the web is without it? And would it convince you to keep it that way, knowing that it's still slower anyway - other reasons to use an adblocker aside? Now, to be fair to the study - it's talking about reduced incentive to install an ad-blocker. But I don't really think that's quantifiable, since there is such a stark and objectively better difference in browsing the web with an ad-blocker in pretty much every metric, speed notwithstanding. I mean, it's just baffling to me that given the choices "really shitty (ads), pretty shitty (slightly faster ads), and not shitty at all (ad-blocker)", someone would choose "pretty shitty" when they can have "not shitty at all." So, I've made some scientifically-questionable arguments, but I don't feel like it takes any serious analysis to doubt the value of this study.
  - ehsankia 7y ago
    Right, I don't think they're trying to win back ad-blocking people, but rather avoid irritating people without ad-blockers more and driving them towards ad-blockers.

robbrown451 7y ago

I get it that you (and many here) don't like ads, what do you mean by "that ship sailed long ago"? That Google should just close up shop and go home? Advertising exists. You can't make it go away. You can make it less bothersome to most people. And I'm having trouble understanding how you say their conclusion (which simply said it "may" decrease the incentive) is so bizarre. Are you assuming that everyone out there views ads the way you do?

journalctl 7y ago
You can’t make it go away? Who made it in the first place? The natural state of the universe is no advertising. It’s not as though a “You’re the 1,000,000th visitor to this site!” banners popped into existence three femtoseconds after the Big Bang.
- katzgrau 7y ago
  I'd disagree. Advertising exists in very subtle forms such as mere persuasion and even more subtly, plain information. The background radiation present in the cosmos advertises the big bang's existence.
  - labster 7y ago
    I’m still waiting for the 2-for-the-price-of-1 sale on Big Bangs before I buy.
  - journalctl 7y ago
    whoosh My point was that advertising doesn’t need to exist in its current state. It’s not some immutable facet of the universe that Google tracks us everywhere and then directs targeted crap at us.
  - danharaj 7y ago
    Are you being obtuse on purpose?
- crispinb 7y ago
  Quite. It's only a cultural production. We certainly can make it go away. It's an critical part of an ecocidal system of production that is incompatible with a living planet. It's also incompatible with healthy, clear-seeing minds. Was it Adbusters who referred to marketing as 'mental pollution'? That almost seems too narrow - I think of it as a cognitive & cultural pollution: the manufacture of desire, for the purpose of cancerous & unsustainable fake economic 'growth'. It will have to go.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  "The natural state of the universe is no advertising" Tell that to a peacock.
satori99 7y ago
> Advertising exists. You can't make it go away. That sounds like a challenge. :) FWIW I agree with OP, I block all ads, where ever I can. On web pages, and even when streaming live TV. I have never agreed to view ads in exchange for viewing content. Advertisers and site masters may think there is a self evident implied agreement, but I do not. Advertising, no matter how or why it is served, always tries to steal your attention and force a mental context switch. Filtering this out using your mind is just tiresome and frustrating.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  I'm not saying that you can't make advertising go away for yourself, if you try hard enough. But I don't think you, or you and all the other people of your mindset, can make it go away altogether. I don't use adblockers, but I can't blame people who do. I'm not convinced the world would be better if everyone did. I do wish that there was legislation that required all ad supported web sites to have reasonably priced plans where people could pay to bypass the ads. Or something. But right now ads support a lot of services that I am glad are here.
  - satori99 7y ago
    > But I don't think you [...] can make it go away altogether. If we can train neural networks to recognize things, then I don't see why those things can't be ads. Carl Sagan hypothesized a little about this in his 1985 novel Contact. Years before, he had invented a module that, when a television commercial appeared, automatically muted the sound. It wasn't at first a context-recognition device. Instead, it simply monitored the amplitude of the carrier wave... Before there could be any coordinated response from the television advertising industry, Adnix had become wildly popular. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Q6o51-W_z8MC&pg=PA226&dq=Adnix&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFw7L0hMblAhWX8XMBHR64AaUQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Adnix&f=false https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Q6o51-W_z8MC&pg=PA226&d...
    - robbrown451 7y ago
      You sound like you are simply talking about ad blockers, which says to me you are missing the point. Not everyone will choose to use ad blockers. Also, if you do that effectively enough, you end up with people sneaking the ads into the content, as opposed to clear delineations between ads and content. Do you prefer that? Regardless, ads are here and a big part of the economy of the web. If I were Google, I would simply ignore the people who are so extreme that they can't see value in their attempts to reduce the annoyance factor of web advertising. Personally, I am ok with ads that do not significantly slow down the page, are very clear that they are ads, don't block content, and don't make me wait for content. I don't even mind if they have tracked me, although I'd prefer if I had some degree of control over that. On a web site I like, I am glad that the site owner gets a few pennies for my use of the site. I see a lot of ads -- often from Amazon -- for things like skateboard / roller skate parts, digital pianos, and "maker" things like Dremel tools. Sometimes I ignore them, but sometimes I look at them just like I would if I walked by that sort of thing in a retail environment: they catch my eye because they are things I like. Admittedly, sometimes I see ads for things like women's swimsuits or the like. Probably because, in a moment of weakness, I clicked on an ad to see a larger photo of a pretty woman in a swimsuit. I'd kind of like to be able to say "I'm not interested in this sort of ad," but then again, I really don't care that much. I suspect you can't wrap your head around my attitude, but that's what it is.
throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
> Are you assuming that everyone out there views ads the way you do? I think 99.9% of ad block users who understand what ad blocking is would agree that they would not start unblocking ads because they loaded faster.
akersten 7y ago
> what do you mean by "that ship sailed long ago"? That Google should just close up shop and go home? If that's the only alternative that the brilliant minds at the Big G can come up with, then that sounds fine to me. I'm sure they can think of something more creative though, like "make a product and sell it." Without the snark, what I mean specifically is that I will never browse the web without an adblocker, no matter how "fast", "clean from malware", "acceptable", or "organic and free-range" Google claims their ads are. It's just out of the question. They take up my bandwidth, use my device battery power, execute code on my machine that I don't need, jeopardize my privacy, and put my operational security at risk. I personally also think advertising is distasteful and manipulative. So, I empower myself to prevent this unwanted interference to my mental and digital autonomy to the greatest possible extent. I don't really sympathize with sites that "rely" on ad revenue either. The Web existed before them, the Web will exist after them. > And I'm having trouble understanding how you say their conclusion (which simply said it "may" decrease the incentive) is so bizarre. Are you assuming that everyone out there views ads the way you do? I made a different comment about why the conclusion is bizarre to me: I don't think ad-block users are sensitive to changes in ad speed, that they wouldn't be able to notice in the first place on account of using an ad-blocker. Non-ad-block users probably don't care in the first place, and if they do, they install an ad-blocker for the myriad other reasons that happen to include speed.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  > The Web existed before them, the Web will exist after them. That's a bit more black and white that my view. I don't care if the web "exists" per se, I don't think I'd use if very much if it was still like it was in 1995. >I don't think ad-block users are sensitive to changes in ad speed, that they wouldn't be able to notice in the first place on account of using an ad-blocker. Wait, so you are only considering in the equation people who are currently already using ad blockers? Ummm, ok. It seems weird that I have to say this, but I think the idea is that every person who uses an ad blocker was once a person who didn't use an ad blocker, and that there is some threshold of annoyance that must be surpassed before they typically install an ad blocker. I don't think Google's attempt to speed up ads is intended to improve the experience for those who are already using ad blockers. Is this not obvious, or am I missing something?
CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
> Advertising exists. You can't make it go away. You could make them illegal. I guess there’s some principle of free speech that’s in conflict with that approach. But it’s an interesting thought to play around with, how would the world change if ads were illegal...
- robbrown451 7y ago
  Who is "you"? My point in saying "you can't make it go away" was not that, if everyone in the world agreed that we should not have ads, that we as a human race couldn't get rid of them. My point is that that is not going to happen. Or at least, it isn't going to happen suddenly. When a big internet advertising company encourages advertisers to make their ads less bothersome, and it is met with "but we want no ads at all," I just don't see how that is helpful.

ehsankia 7y ago

> I think making this conclusion from the data in the linked adblock report is a bizarre interpretation of that data. How so? One of the big pros every ad blocker advertises is "faster page loads". Slow page loads is very much an incentive to get an ad blocker. It's just how Google working with betterads.org to implement an Ad Blocker for outrageous ads in Chrome.

akersten 7y ago
>> > I think making this conclusion from the data in the linked adblock report is a bizarre interpretation of that data. > How so? One of the big pros every ad blocker advertises is "faster page loads" Without getting too much into how questionable I find the copy of the source site (pagefair): There's no dose-response here. It's not like ads getting 50ms faster, there's some percentage of ad-block users that convert to non-ad-block. The activation energy to go from non-ad-block to ad-block is so much lower than it is to go the other way around. How often do you turn off your ad-blocker just to check how fast the web is without it? And would it convince you to keep it that way, knowing that it's still slower anyway - other reasons to use an adblocker aside? Now, to be fair to the study - it's talking about reduced incentive to install an ad-blocker. But I don't really think that's quantifiable, since there is such a stark and objectively better difference in browsing the web with an ad-blocker in pretty much every metric, speed notwithstanding. I mean, it's just baffling to me that given the choices "really shitty (ads), pretty shitty (slightly faster ads), and not shitty at all (ad-blocker)", someone would choose "pretty shitty" when they can have "not shitty at all." So, I've made some scientifically-questionable arguments, but I don't feel like it takes any serious analysis to doubt the value of this study.
- ehsankia 7y ago
  Right, I don't think they're trying to win back ad-blocking people, but rather avoid irritating people without ad-blockers more and driving them towards ad-blockers.