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HN vastly over estimates how many people use adblockers every time this comes up and it is getting tiring. Google will likely not see any noticeable reduction

HN vastly over estimates how many people use adblockers every time this comes up and it is getting tiring. Google will likely not see any noticeable reduction in user count from the upcoming addon changes. If you value your software freedom you shouldn't have been on Chrome in the first place for any reason.

EA-3167 3y ago
Is there a demographic skew to consider? There are billions online, but the most desirable eyeballs on ads are Western and young. I would guess that population uses ad-blockers at a much higher rate than the background population, but I won't venture to guess how much higher.
exabrial 3y ago
[flagged]
- crazygringo 3y ago
  "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - exabrial 3y ago
    fine, ok
4death4 3y ago
According to a random Google search, something like 40% of internet users use an ad blocker.
burkaman 3y ago
35-45% of users worldwide use ad blockers, depending on the source. It is extremely common, otherwise Google wouldn't be doing this. The top few ad blockers in the Chrome store (uBlock, AdBlock, AdGuard, etc.) have tens of millions of users each.
- Xenoamorphous 3y ago
  And this is the path towards paywalled-everything, sadly.
  - irrational 3y ago
    As long as the paywalls have zero ads, I’m fine with that. If it is paywall + ads? No. Either charge enough that you don’t need ads, or only use ads. Never both.
    - Xenoamorphous 3y ago
      No, of course there will be no ads. But yeah, I’m sure HNers will be ok with a paywall, considering they’re probably in the top 10% (if not 5% or 1%) of their respective countries. What’s a few more bucks on top of their dozen monthly subscriptions. Now go ask someone with the median income in a developing country how they feel about getting pretty much all relevant content in the Internet paywalled in the next 10 years or so due to the ever increasing use of ad-blockers. Don’t get me wrong, content creators/owners are as much, if not more, to blame than ad blocker users.
      - Barrin92 3y ago
        I always find this argument very odd. There's high quality, international ad-free public services and culture available for everyone. You even get commitments to factuality and neutrality, in this day and age! sure streaming the <current year> blockbuster costs money, but then again somehow nobody ever complained they had to pay for a movie ticket. Private market pop culture isn't some sort of good that one ought to expect to be free.
        Xenoamorphous 3y ago
        What about news? Like, current event news. Most major newspapers are moving towards a paywall mode and the rest will follow soon.
    - 3y ago
danShumway 3y ago
HN vastly over estimates adblocker usage, yes. But also if adblocker usage was completely trivial and could be completely ignored, then Google would not be wasting resources trying to shut it down on sites like Youtube. I don't think this is going to create a large change in browser stats, but I'm also not sure anything short of antitrust is going to create a large change in browser stats. The pickings are very slim for issues that are worth campaigning on to change general user behavior, and adblocking might as well be one of the ones we use, because while it's a minuscule percentage at least it's not nothing. It's at least a large enough percentage for Google to care about targeting it. And at the very least, adblocking is an easier issue to campaign on for user rights than privacy or abstract notions like software freedom are. We shouldn't be so quick to throw away talking points around one of the very few user rights where exercising that right has an obvious benefit and doesn't just make the user's life more complicated or difficult in the short term. I am not going to get many people to switch to Firefox over an adblocker. But I'll get more people to switch for adblocking than I would by telling them to care about privacy or web ecosystem health.
cptskippy 3y ago
Chrome won because the won over the influencers, that is the developers and people who provide support to others. Those influencers recommended Chrome to friends and family. As soon as those influencers shift to another browser, everyone else will gradually follow. The problem that will prevent this from happening is the browser engine monoculture that might result it websites blocking anything but Chrome or a Chromium browser.

EA-3167 3y ago

Is there a demographic skew to consider? There are billions online, but the most desirable eyeballs on ads are Western and young. I would guess that population uses ad-blockers at a much higher rate than the background population, but I won't venture to guess how much higher.

exabrial 3y ago

[flagged]

crazygringo 3y ago
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- exabrial 3y ago
  fine, ok

4death4 3y ago

According to a random Google search, something like 40% of internet users use an ad blocker.

burkaman 3y ago

35-45% of users worldwide use ad blockers, depending on the source. It is extremely common, otherwise Google wouldn't be doing this. The top few ad blockers in the Chrome store (uBlock, AdBlock, AdGuard, etc.) have tens of millions of users each.

Xenoamorphous 3y ago
And this is the path towards paywalled-everything, sadly.
- irrational 3y ago
  As long as the paywalls have zero ads, I’m fine with that. If it is paywall + ads? No. Either charge enough that you don’t need ads, or only use ads. Never both.
  - Xenoamorphous 3y ago
    No, of course there will be no ads. But yeah, I’m sure HNers will be ok with a paywall, considering they’re probably in the top 10% (if not 5% or 1%) of their respective countries. What’s a few more bucks on top of their dozen monthly subscriptions. Now go ask someone with the median income in a developing country how they feel about getting pretty much all relevant content in the Internet paywalled in the next 10 years or so due to the ever increasing use of ad-blockers. Don’t get me wrong, content creators/owners are as much, if not more, to blame than ad blocker users.
    - Barrin92 3y ago
      I always find this argument very odd. There's high quality, international ad-free public services and culture available for everyone. You even get commitments to factuality and neutrality, in this day and age! sure streaming the <current year> blockbuster costs money, but then again somehow nobody ever complained they had to pay for a movie ticket. Private market pop culture isn't some sort of good that one ought to expect to be free.
      - Xenoamorphous 3y ago
        What about news? Like, current event news. Most major newspapers are moving towards a paywall mode and the rest will follow soon.
  - 3y ago

danShumway 3y ago

HN vastly over estimates adblocker usage, yes. But also if adblocker usage was completely trivial and could be completely ignored, then Google would not be wasting resources trying to shut it down on sites like Youtube. I don't think this is going to create a large change in browser stats, but I'm also not sure anything short of antitrust is going to create a large change in browser stats. The pickings are very slim for issues that are worth campaigning on to change general user behavior, and adblocking might as well be one of the ones we use, because while it's a minuscule percentage at least it's not nothing. It's at least a large enough percentage for Google to care about targeting it. And at the very least, adblocking is an easier issue to campaign on for user rights than privacy or abstract notions like software freedom are. We shouldn't be so quick to throw away talking points around one of the very few user rights where exercising that right has an obvious benefit and doesn't just make the user's life more complicated or difficult in the short term. I am not going to get many people to switch to Firefox over an adblocker. But I'll get more people to switch for adblocking than I would by telling them to care about privacy or web ecosystem health.

cptskippy 3y ago

Chrome won because the won over the influencers, that is the developers and people who provide support to others. Those influencers recommended Chrome to friends and family. As soon as those influencers shift to another browser, everyone else will gradually follow. The problem that will prevent this from happening is the browser engine monoculture that might result it websites blocking anything but Chrome or a Chromium browser.