5 ms·

In all fairness, if the rest of us didn't run adblockers, they probably wouldn't need to be so aggressive with the ads for those that currently don't.

by Tenoke 5y ago

BenjiWiebe 5y ago
I'm gonna guess that isn't the case, and that the percentage of people using ad blockers is still fairly low.
ravar 5y ago
This strikes me as wishful thinking, adblockers are such a small minority. They are just following the incentives they would always follow, adblockers or no.
- throwaway744678 5y ago
  From the article, 27% of users; this is higher than I thought, and not negligible anymore. Note: I tried a few google search to find accurate data, but it goes all over the place; is there an accurate estimation somewhere?
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    Finding out if someone is running an ad blocker is not easy. After all a good ad blocker tries to be stealthy about it. (anti ad blocker leads to anti anti ad blocker)
    - mileza 5y ago
      There are plenty of websites that detect that I'm using an adblocker. It's mildly annoying, but then I get to decide if what I was about to read was worth it. Most of the time it's journaldemontreal.com (and other Quebecor-related websites) that prevents me from reading their articles with my adblocker. Which is a blessing in a way, because it's basically a glorified tabloid with a lot of articles of dubious quality. I'm on Firefox with both AdBlockPlus and uBlock Origin.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  Adblockers are at 27% just in the US looking at statista and other random sources, and the number is much higher if you look at the more relevant younger demographic. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach-usage-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach...
Workaccount2 5y ago
This is exactly the case. Every time someone starts ad-blocking, someone else has to assume that ad watch for them. Of course this isn't 1:1 parity in reality, but the ultimate manifestation of ad blocking is that. Google had a good system a few years ago that I was probably the only sucker who paid them for it (and probably why they stopped it). You could pay a chosen amount monthly, and they would not show you ads as a result. It wasn't perfected, but the concept was good for those who understand the problem and want to work towards a solution.
- whoibrar 5y ago
  Which year was this ? Can you share more information regarding this ?
  - Workaccount2 5y ago
    I want to say they stopped it in 2018? I don't remember the name of the program, and searching "google paying for no ads" brings up a ton of unrelated adwords stuff. I payed $5/mo and they would roll over unused funds. It worked pretty well, except that it would still show where the banners were, just blank whitespace instead of an ad.
  - jsnell 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
    - Workaccount2 5y ago
      Yeah thanks, that was it.
    - whoibrar 5y ago
      Thank you (:
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  Aren't the people who use adblockers by definition those who are irritated by advertising enough that they wouldn't buy the products and services being advertised? If anything ad people should love things like uBlock Origin, it means they're not wasting their ad spend on people who aren't going to buy their products anyway.
tasha0663 5y ago
You've put the cart ahead of the horse. Ad-blockers took off once they started throwing animated banners at us. Punch the monkey, win an ipod.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  That's not really true. Youtube ads specifically were way way milder and rarer years ago when way less people used Adblock.
  - sundarurfriend 5y ago
    And global warming was much milder when we had more pirates in the world [1]. Correlation is not causation. In the same period, YouTube's management style and public-facing attitude have changed dramatically, Google's general attempt at being the "good guys" has pretty much vanished, and beancounting has taken over as the guiding principle in many respects. I have zero reason to believe that had Adblocking not been a thing, there would have been any significant difference in the frequency or intrusiveness of the ads YouTube shows. [1] https://swizec.com/blog/pirates-downfall-causes-global-warming https://swizec.com/blog/pirates-downfall-causes-global-warmi...
    - Tenoke 5y ago
      Correlation is not causation but negative correlation is even more surely not causation and what I was replying to was >Ad-blockers took off once they started throwing animated banners at us which is still not true. When they took off the ads were still minimal.
  - gifnamething 5y ago
    That was when it was still a growing business. Uber was cheaper when investors paid for it, too.
  - ratww 5y ago
    I wouldn't call them "milder". They weren't static ads. They were video ads. Often loud and un-skippable for a certain small amount of time. This is definitely equivalent to a "punch the monkey" ad.
redml 5y ago
There was a time back in the IE6 era where firefox didn't really have any market share and adblockers weren't really a thing. The advertising industry was really aggressive even then. Some publishers put as many popups and banner ads as they could. I'm not saying all publishers would do this, but I have to admit the worst actors are the ones I strongly remember. Only difference now is that there's a lot more tracking and ads are more insidious where they blend in with content now.
- ratww 5y ago
  Yep, the first punch was thrown by the ad industry. Popups, pop-unders and even full window advertisements were rampant before popup blockers became commonplace, to the point of being added directly to browsers.
judge2020 5y ago
To be fair, if people stopped blocking ads I don't see them backing off on Ads any more; the increase in revenue and ad watch time would be kept as profit, since the current YouTube paradigm where they show 2 ads at the start and sometimes multiple mid-roll ads is so that they annoy you enough to sign up for Premium.
demindiro 5y ago
I doubt that. Even if adblockers weren't a thing they'd push more ads since it generates more revenue. It's probably also effective at annoying users into buying a subscription to avoid (most) ads.
argomo 5y ago
What's this mythical world where industry execs leave profit on the table because they aren't being squeezed by ad blockers? Have you tried watching cable TV? You know, the service that was originally billed as a way to watch tv without ads?

In all fairness, if the rest of us didn't run adblockers, they probably wouldn't need to be so aggressive with the ads for those that currently don't.

by Tenoke 5y ago

In all fairness, if the rest of us didn't run adblockers, they probably wouldn't need to be so aggressive with the ads for those that currently don't.

BenjiWiebe 5y ago

I'm gonna guess that isn't the case, and that the percentage of people using ad blockers is still fairly low.

ravar 5y ago

This strikes me as wishful thinking, adblockers are such a small minority. They are just following the incentives they would always follow, adblockers or no.

throwaway744678 5y ago
From the article, 27% of users; this is higher than I thought, and not negligible anymore. Note: I tried a few google search to find accurate data, but it goes all over the place; is there an accurate estimation somewhere?
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Finding out if someone is running an ad blocker is not easy. After all a good ad blocker tries to be stealthy about it. (anti ad blocker leads to anti anti ad blocker)
  - mileza 5y ago
    There are plenty of websites that detect that I'm using an adblocker. It's mildly annoying, but then I get to decide if what I was about to read was worth it. Most of the time it's journaldemontreal.com (and other Quebecor-related websites) that prevents me from reading their articles with my adblocker. Which is a blessing in a way, because it's basically a glorified tabloid with a lot of articles of dubious quality. I'm on Firefox with both AdBlockPlus and uBlock Origin.
Tenoke 5y ago
Adblockers are at 27% just in the US looking at statista and other random sources, and the number is much higher if you look at the more relevant younger demographic. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach-usage-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach...

Workaccount2 5y ago

This is exactly the case. Every time someone starts ad-blocking, someone else has to assume that ad watch for them. Of course this isn't 1:1 parity in reality, but the ultimate manifestation of ad blocking is that. Google had a good system a few years ago that I was probably the only sucker who paid them for it (and probably why they stopped it). You could pay a chosen amount monthly, and they would not show you ads as a result. It wasn't perfected, but the concept was good for those who understand the problem and want to work towards a solution.

whoibrar 5y ago
Which year was this ? Can you share more information regarding this ?
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  I want to say they stopped it in 2018? I don't remember the name of the program, and searching "google paying for no ads" brings up a ton of unrelated adwords stuff. I payed $5/mo and they would roll over unused funds. It worked pretty well, except that it would still show where the banners were, just blank whitespace instead of an ad.
- jsnell 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
  - Workaccount2 5y ago
    Yeah thanks, that was it.
  - whoibrar 5y ago
    Thank you (:
BoxOfRain 5y ago
Aren't the people who use adblockers by definition those who are irritated by advertising enough that they wouldn't buy the products and services being advertised? If anything ad people should love things like uBlock Origin, it means they're not wasting their ad spend on people who aren't going to buy their products anyway.

tasha0663 5y ago

You've put the cart ahead of the horse. Ad-blockers took off once they started throwing animated banners at us. Punch the monkey, win an ipod.

Tenoke 5y ago
That's not really true. Youtube ads specifically were way way milder and rarer years ago when way less people used Adblock.
- sundarurfriend 5y ago
  And global warming was much milder when we had more pirates in the world [1]. Correlation is not causation. In the same period, YouTube's management style and public-facing attitude have changed dramatically, Google's general attempt at being the "good guys" has pretty much vanished, and beancounting has taken over as the guiding principle in many respects. I have zero reason to believe that had Adblocking not been a thing, there would have been any significant difference in the frequency or intrusiveness of the ads YouTube shows. [1] https://swizec.com/blog/pirates-downfall-causes-global-warming https://swizec.com/blog/pirates-downfall-causes-global-warmi...
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    Correlation is not causation but negative correlation is even more surely not causation and what I was replying to was >Ad-blockers took off once they started throwing animated banners at us which is still not true. When they took off the ads were still minimal.
- gifnamething 5y ago
  That was when it was still a growing business. Uber was cheaper when investors paid for it, too.
- ratww 5y ago
  I wouldn't call them "milder". They weren't static ads. They were video ads. Often loud and un-skippable for a certain small amount of time. This is definitely equivalent to a "punch the monkey" ad.

redml 5y ago

There was a time back in the IE6 era where firefox didn't really have any market share and adblockers weren't really a thing. The advertising industry was really aggressive even then. Some publishers put as many popups and banner ads as they could. I'm not saying all publishers would do this, but I have to admit the worst actors are the ones I strongly remember. Only difference now is that there's a lot more tracking and ads are more insidious where they blend in with content now.

ratww 5y ago
Yep, the first punch was thrown by the ad industry. Popups, pop-unders and even full window advertisements were rampant before popup blockers became commonplace, to the point of being added directly to browsers.

judge2020 5y ago

To be fair, if people stopped blocking ads I don't see them backing off on Ads any more; the increase in revenue and ad watch time would be kept as profit, since the current YouTube paradigm where they show 2 ads at the start and sometimes multiple mid-roll ads is so that they annoy you enough to sign up for Premium.

demindiro 5y ago

I doubt that. Even if adblockers weren't a thing they'd push more ads since it generates more revenue. It's probably also effective at annoying users into buying a subscription to avoid (most) ads.

argomo 5y ago

What's this mythical world where industry execs leave profit on the table because they aren't being squeezed by ad blockers? Have you tried watching cable TV? You know, the service that was originally billed as a way to watch tv without ads?