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>People won't use Chrome if adblock is ineffective. They will use Edge, or Safari, or..., they'll use Brave. This simply isn't supported by evidence. Most use

>People won't use Chrome if adblock is ineffective. They will use Edge, or Safari, or..., they'll use Brave. This simply isn't supported by evidence. Most users today do not use ad-blockers at all. People who do are in the minority, though it seems the minority is growing as more people get fed up with ads, and learn about ad-blockers somehow. Most users just aren't as motivated to avoid ads as you think they are. And it's not just clueless non-technical users: look at the countless comments here on HN in articles of this type from technical people who refuse to block ads because they think they're somehow obligated to look at them, and who call people like you evil and immoral. If adblock becomes ineffective on Chrome, I expect usage rates won't change much. If ad-blockers remain effective on other platforms and not on Chrome, I expect that users might slowly migrate to those other browsers, over the course of many long years, just like they did with IE, but it's still going to be a minority because, as it stands, it's only a minority that even cares. Other people are perfectly happy to be bombarded with ads.

phendrenad2 3y ago
Wait, you're using HN users as a metric? Are you trying for world's worst sample set?
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  No, I'm assuming HN users are probably the most technically capable and most likely to use ad-blockers, so if a large portion of them refuse, we can assume it's even worse in the outside world. Also, I don't have any stats handy, but the ones I've seen show that ad-blocker usage is well below 50% overall, according to various industry stats, though that number is rising.
  - phendrenad2 3y ago
    Well, I haven't seen these "HN users who refuse to use ad-blocker". Can you point to some example posts? I think you might have seen one or two and you're misreading the true sample size. Anyway, an important point here to remember is: Users are not dollars. We are not all equally valuable to advertisers. Drug companies spend tons of money sending targeted advertising to doctors. If you're a fast-food worker, you don't see any of those ads. You get generic untargeted ads. These lucrative individuals tend to be more technical (most doctors I know are computer power-users), and are more likely to use adblock. So a relatively small percentage of users using adblock, as long as it's the right percentage of users, could have a huge effect on Google's bottom line here.
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      >Well, I haven't seen these "HN users who refuse to use ad-blocker". Can you point to some example posts? I think you might have seen one or two and you're misreading the true sample size. I'm not going to do your research for you. These people post every time there's a big discussion about ad-blockers, and there's more than one of them. Perhaps they're a vocal minority, but they really do call everyone else here a bunch of thieves for not watching ads. Of course, there's no way to do an unbiased survey here to see what percentage of HN users they really are. But given how many tech workers work for ad-tech companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.), I don't think they're some vanishingly small percentage. >So a relatively small percentage of users using adblock, as long as it's the right percentage of users, could have a huge effect on Google's bottom line here. That's a very good point. But if your business model depends on annoying your most tech-savvy users and hoping they don't find technical means to avoid your annoyances, and then fighting with them (by trying to out-tech their technical measures) to annoy them further, you need a better business model.
      - phendrenad2 3y ago
        > I'm not going to do your research for you I'm not trying to convince you. Anyone who reads this can click on any random article here about ads and see that I'm right, only a tiny fraction of the posts consider ad blocking "stealing". Now I don't know for sure that that means that it's a tiny minority of actual users, but I think that's a safer assumption than yours, based on what little data we have. > business model depends on annoying your most tech-savvy users and hoping they don't find technical means to avoid your annoyances No I agree, I think that Google has lost their collective minds and are making a huge blunder here. If they actually ban adblockers, then their most valuable crop of users will leave.

phendrenad2 3y ago

Wait, you're using HN users as a metric? Are you trying for world's worst sample set?

shiroiuma 3y ago
No, I'm assuming HN users are probably the most technically capable and most likely to use ad-blockers, so if a large portion of them refuse, we can assume it's even worse in the outside world. Also, I don't have any stats handy, but the ones I've seen show that ad-blocker usage is well below 50% overall, according to various industry stats, though that number is rising.
- phendrenad2 3y ago
  Well, I haven't seen these "HN users who refuse to use ad-blocker". Can you point to some example posts? I think you might have seen one or two and you're misreading the true sample size. Anyway, an important point here to remember is: Users are not dollars. We are not all equally valuable to advertisers. Drug companies spend tons of money sending targeted advertising to doctors. If you're a fast-food worker, you don't see any of those ads. You get generic untargeted ads. These lucrative individuals tend to be more technical (most doctors I know are computer power-users), and are more likely to use adblock. So a relatively small percentage of users using adblock, as long as it's the right percentage of users, could have a huge effect on Google's bottom line here.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    >Well, I haven't seen these "HN users who refuse to use ad-blocker". Can you point to some example posts? I think you might have seen one or two and you're misreading the true sample size. I'm not going to do your research for you. These people post every time there's a big discussion about ad-blockers, and there's more than one of them. Perhaps they're a vocal minority, but they really do call everyone else here a bunch of thieves for not watching ads. Of course, there's no way to do an unbiased survey here to see what percentage of HN users they really are. But given how many tech workers work for ad-tech companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.), I don't think they're some vanishingly small percentage. >So a relatively small percentage of users using adblock, as long as it's the right percentage of users, could have a huge effect on Google's bottom line here. That's a very good point. But if your business model depends on annoying your most tech-savvy users and hoping they don't find technical means to avoid your annoyances, and then fighting with them (by trying to out-tech their technical measures) to annoy them further, you need a better business model.
    - phendrenad2 3y ago
      > I'm not going to do your research for you I'm not trying to convince you. Anyone who reads this can click on any random article here about ads and see that I'm right, only a tiny fraction of the posts consider ad blocking "stealing". Now I don't know for sure that that means that it's a tiny minority of actual users, but I think that's a safer assumption than yours, based on what little data we have. > business model depends on annoying your most tech-savvy users and hoping they don't find technical means to avoid your annoyances No I agree, I think that Google has lost their collective minds and are making a huge blunder here. If they actually ban adblockers, then their most valuable crop of users will leave.