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> 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 bloc

> 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.

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.