8 ms·

Adblock buying ads to advertise Adblock

67 points by makeshifthoop 13y ago

lutusp 13y ago
This initially sounds crazy and paradoxical, until you realize they'll surely be able to reach people who haven't yet installed AdBlock.
- michaelmcmillan 13y ago
  You're right! Not my first thought, I have to admit.
- notahacker 13y ago
  Yes, it's a good way for them to bombard people who aren't sufficiently annoyed by ads to actually look for ways to block them with messages telling them they should be. They already "empowered" people to choose an ad-free internet by building the app; people that want it download it. Why exactly isn't it equally obnoxious and irritating for AdBlock to follow everyone else round the internet trying to change their behaviour? Or is their rationale that advertising serves the legitimate purpose of informing users about choices they may not realize they have? Either way, I'm baffled by the whole exercise, and I have Adblock installed on my primary browser. Still, the Kickstarter campaign is a great guerilla ad for the Scouter app...
  - kamjam 13y ago
    Luckily for you then, since you already have AdBlock installed, you won't see the adverts. Or is their rationale that advertising serves the legitimate purpose of informing users about choices they may not realize they have? Exactly. Believe or not, most people on HN are computer savvy. There are some users who are not aware of AdBlock. Personally I have installed it on a number of friends and family computers, and guess what, it has reduced the amount of adware and malware they install.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > Luckily for you then, since you already have AdBlock installed, you won't see the adverts. Actually, AdBlock is making the new ad appear to those who have AdBlock installed -- I just saw my AdBlock icon light up and, when clicked, display this ad: http://i.imgur.com/Kwi9qmD.png http://i.imgur.com/Kwi9qmD.png I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Dorothy.
      - kamjam 13y ago
        Actually, AdBlock is making the new ad appear to those who have AdBlock installed I saw the same thing, but that's not exactly the same thing as seeing ads, they're not (AFAIK) only showing AdBlock ads... they're informing you of something they are implementing in a hidden way. If you really take offence to what they are doing then you (and not directed at you per se) - Uninstall AdBlock - View ads on websites, maybe click on them occasionally so click-through rates increase - Install Adblock Plus, because it's not the ad blocking that you are specifically against, just the fact they are advertising The point is, you have options, and they are presenting options to potential users. This is how things work in a free-market economy. We're not living under a totally facist regime just yet...
        lutusp 13y ago
        > I saw the same thing, but that's not exactly the same thing as seeing ads, they're not (AFAIK) only showing AdBlock ads... they're informing you of something they are implementing in a hidden way. I think it counts as an advertisement, and I'm not complaining, only observing. I just thought there was more than a touch of irony in AdBlock showing an ad within the AdBlock app. > We're not living under a totally facist regime just yet... Interesting comparison. A regime that forced us to watch ads could be described as Fascist, as could one that blocked all ads regardless of people's tastes. Anything that prevented free choice.
        kamjam 13y ago
        I don't think the irony is missed on anyone, no doubt the AdBlock guys them themselves... and the ability to watch or not watch ads is not the point I was making. The point is we have a choice of whether to use or not use, either Adblock, AdBlock plus, something else or nothing at all. But more so, the general state of the web and the big brother on everything. It's a slippery slope :)
petera 13y ago
When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.
smegel 13y ago
How dare they blight the web with hideous banner ads, I'm now going to go and install....oh.
joosters 13y ago
To be effective, the adverts need to be the most obnoxious, loudest, gaudiest and intrusive designs possible :) For extra points, they should flaunt their privacy invading features, e.g. follow you around on all the sites you visit, cheerfully reminding you about the places you've been and how all the other advertisers are recording this too.
krichman 13y ago
If they are successful I imagine they will end up as a Yelp-style legal extortion business that is rent-seeking on advertisers.
colmvp 13y ago
I'm interested in knowing how they'll message the ad campaign.
FunnyDuck 13y ago
I liked AdBlock up to that point. What are the alternatives?
cLeEOGPw 13y ago
This makes a perfect sense actually. They want as much people as possible to use the extension so that more advertisers are forced to pay to adblock itself to allow the ads through. The ethics on the other hand on such a moves are questionable, since it makes ordinary advertising either obsolete or makes adblock the bottleneck of it's effectiveness.
- opinali 13y ago
  Ethics? Ad blocking is facilitation of content stealing. Not one inch better than, say, a torrent site where the vast majority of torrents are copyrighted material.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Unlicencesd copyrighted material. Most free software and free music/movies are copyrighted, but they are licensed for distribution.
    - opinali 13y ago
      Agreed, that's what I meant of course but trying to simplify.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Stealing was already incorrect when we were talking about copyright infringement, as the US Supreme Court has pointed out. It's definitively wrong when there's no copyright infringement at all.
- coldpie 13y ago
  > They want as much people as possible to use the extension so that more advertisers are forced to pay to adblock itself to allow the ads through. Is there any evidence of this happening?
  - cLeEOGPw 13y ago
    Isn't a combination of ads for adblock and the revalations that google and others pay adblock to unblock their ads enough?
k_bx 13y ago
I'd understand the use of adblock that only blocks annoying ads, like pop-ups or animation / sound. But why would sane person block regular ads?
- jkhaxxe 13y ago
  Because I'm paying for the bandwidth, and because I'm there for the content, not the adverts, and because I can - it's my computer, I can decide what it does.
  - risent 13y ago
    The content provider also paying for the bandwidth.
    - jkhaxxe 13y ago
      So? Perhaps they would also like to block the ads at the server side, and save themselves the bill? But more seriously, I don't care about their bills. They're delivering HTML over an open network connection - what I do with that HTML is entirely up to me. If they don't like that there's nothing they can do about it.
      - sdoering 13y ago
        Greetings, > I don't care about their bills [sarcasm] How farsighted. Oh how very farsighted. [sarcasm off] So you really do not care about their service being shut down, because it could not pay for itself? I mean, people working there to produce content, hardware to run the service, bandwidth, and so on...
        jkhaxxe 13y ago
        I really don't care. I'm just not going to look at any adverts.
        king_jester 13y ago
dm2 13y ago
How likely would advertisers be to refuse to allow the Adblock ads? I don't really have a problem with ads on websites, experienced users can easily block them, but I see no problem with providing ads for a free service. Many organizations only have three methods to generate revenue, either show advertisements, have paid memberships, or take donations. Google shows advertisements, Apple has paid memberships, Wikipedia and Apache Foundation take donations. All three are great companies, they just have different ways to generate revenue. Many websites have no choice but to move towards an advertisements method to remain operational, Adblock is trying to destroy that method of revenue and the online advertising market, it could destroy many great websites and companies that currently make money from advertising. While I'm not a huge fan of ads, they do serve a purpose, and destroying a harmless market such as online advertising without replacing it or supplementing it somehow isn't good. Plus if Adblock is actually successful and the online advertising industry collapses, then they will be putting themselves out of business.
- ErikHuisman 13y ago
  "Plus if Adblock is actually successful and the online advertising industry collapses, then they will be putting themselves out of business." Even worse. Some of these companies (not adblock) are asking protection money from big advertisers to be whitelisted. Mafia style.
  - philliphaydon 13y ago
    A free service putting itself out of business... Can someone explain to me how that works?
    - Kudos 13y ago
      > A free service putting itself out of business... Are you suggesting a free service can't make enough money to operate a business? Man, how am I getting away with not paying for that Wikipedia subscription. Adblock operates on donations and if it were to eliminate advertising, its current product would become useless.
billadoid 13y ago
A workaround to this would be self serving the ads, in combination with dynamically named tags / divs etc. Obfuscating would complicate things, but at least it'd be a workaround. It's crazy that buySellAds hasn't taken advantage of this.
- liotier 13y ago
  This arms race has already begun.
painki11er 13y ago
I don't understand how ad-blocking is even legal. It's like stealing - stealing content for free, IMHO there's no difference between stealing MP3s and news or any other content. There's some kind of user agreement between websites and its users - "you can use our site for free, but you have to watch the ads". Adblock violates this agreement. The people responsible for this should be in prison, they're thieves. And I'm pretty sure the time will come they will.
- uptown 13y ago
  If you choose not to read billboards displayed alongside highways, is that also stealing?
  - Kudos 13y ago
    That's not exactly the same as the billboards effectively not existing for you like with adblock. You still see absorb the advertisement passively.
    - ttt_ 13y ago
      > You still see absorb the advertisement passively. Good thing I have control of my software and can opt out. I'm already assaulted at the senses all day long in different forms. The whole concept of advertising I find abhorrent. A service should only offer itself to me when I want it, otherwise they are just imposing themselves and I will dislike them for that. Any way that I can opt-out of ads I will make use of. Services that rely on just this business model should adapt or fail, simply. If the service is relevant it will come again from a different source with a more acceptable model.
- mcintyre1994 13y ago
  Do you feel that violating any user agreement should be illegal and those who do it "should be in prison"? Furthermore, where the user agreement isn't specifically given (eg a mandatory ToS), do you feel that any agreement the site owner can claim was implied (use the site for free, watch our ads) should be legally binding?
hrjet 13y ago
Chalk that one as an example of irony. (The other front page article today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274914)
entropyneur 13y ago
It's actually pretty trivial to detect AdBlock and make your site inaccessible unless the user disables it. I've seen a couple sites doing that in the wild. Sounds like a business opportunity...
- Zoomla 13y ago
  I am sure they know about it... but they must have figured it isn't work blocking them (this Adblock detection technique has been around for years).
thewarrior 13y ago
Coming from the other irony thread , is this an example of irony :P ?
livestyle 13y ago
Todd Garland from BSA chimes in - http://toddgarland.com/where-adblock-misses-the-mark.html http://toddgarland.com/where-adblock-misses-the-mark.html Take away quotes -- "Seems to me like this is nothing more than a half-thought idea because they have nothing better to do and are jealous of AdBlock Plus taking bribes from ad companies to "white-list" them from being blocked." "Want to have a real impact on advertising AdBlock? Do something that puts money in publisher bank accounts and gets advertisers results that's less obtrusive than the current state of affairs. Be creative. An ad-free internet is a desert." (full disclosure I work at buysellads)

67 points by makeshifthoop 13y ago

This initially sounds crazy and paradoxical, until you realize they'll surely be able to reach people who haven't yet installed AdBlock.

michaelmcmillan 13y ago
You're right! Not my first thought, I have to admit.
notahacker 13y ago
Yes, it's a good way for them to bombard people who aren't sufficiently annoyed by ads to actually look for ways to block them with messages telling them they should be. They already "empowered" people to choose an ad-free internet by building the app; people that want it download it. Why exactly isn't it equally obnoxious and irritating for AdBlock to follow everyone else round the internet trying to change their behaviour? Or is their rationale that advertising serves the legitimate purpose of informing users about choices they may not realize they have? Either way, I'm baffled by the whole exercise, and I have Adblock installed on my primary browser. Still, the Kickstarter campaign is a great guerilla ad for the Scouter app...
- kamjam 13y ago
  Luckily for you then, since you already have AdBlock installed, you won't see the adverts. Or is their rationale that advertising serves the legitimate purpose of informing users about choices they may not realize they have? Exactly. Believe or not, most people on HN are computer savvy. There are some users who are not aware of AdBlock. Personally I have installed it on a number of friends and family computers, and guess what, it has reduced the amount of adware and malware they install.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Luckily for you then, since you already have AdBlock installed, you won't see the adverts. Actually, AdBlock is making the new ad appear to those who have AdBlock installed -- I just saw my AdBlock icon light up and, when clicked, display this ad: http://i.imgur.com/Kwi9qmD.png http://i.imgur.com/Kwi9qmD.png I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Dorothy.
    - kamjam 13y ago
      Actually, AdBlock is making the new ad appear to those who have AdBlock installed I saw the same thing, but that's not exactly the same thing as seeing ads, they're not (AFAIK) only showing AdBlock ads... they're informing you of something they are implementing in a hidden way. If you really take offence to what they are doing then you (and not directed at you per se) - Uninstall AdBlock - View ads on websites, maybe click on them occasionally so click-through rates increase - Install Adblock Plus, because it's not the ad blocking that you are specifically against, just the fact they are advertising The point is, you have options, and they are presenting options to potential users. This is how things work in a free-market economy. We're not living under a totally facist regime just yet...
      - lutusp 13y ago
        > I saw the same thing, but that's not exactly the same thing as seeing ads, they're not (AFAIK) only showing AdBlock ads... they're informing you of something they are implementing in a hidden way. I think it counts as an advertisement, and I'm not complaining, only observing. I just thought there was more than a touch of irony in AdBlock showing an ad within the AdBlock app. > We're not living under a totally facist regime just yet... Interesting comparison. A regime that forced us to watch ads could be described as Fascist, as could one that blocked all ads regardless of people's tastes. Anything that prevented free choice.
        kamjam 13y ago
        I don't think the irony is missed on anyone, no doubt the AdBlock guys them themselves... and the ability to watch or not watch ads is not the point I was making. The point is we have a choice of whether to use or not use, either Adblock, AdBlock plus, something else or nothing at all. But more so, the general state of the web and the big brother on everything. It's a slippery slope :)

petera 13y ago

When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.

smegel 13y ago

How dare they blight the web with hideous banner ads, I'm now going to go and install....oh.

joosters 13y ago

To be effective, the adverts need to be the most obnoxious, loudest, gaudiest and intrusive designs possible :) For extra points, they should flaunt their privacy invading features, e.g. follow you around on all the sites you visit, cheerfully reminding you about the places you've been and how all the other advertisers are recording this too.

krichman 13y ago

If they are successful I imagine they will end up as a Yelp-style legal extortion business that is rent-seeking on advertisers.

colmvp 13y ago

I'm interested in knowing how they'll message the ad campaign.

FunnyDuck 13y ago

I liked AdBlock up to that point. What are the alternatives?

cLeEOGPw 13y ago

This makes a perfect sense actually. They want as much people as possible to use the extension so that more advertisers are forced to pay to adblock itself to allow the ads through. The ethics on the other hand on such a moves are questionable, since it makes ordinary advertising either obsolete or makes adblock the bottleneck of it's effectiveness.

opinali 13y ago
Ethics? Ad blocking is facilitation of content stealing. Not one inch better than, say, a torrent site where the vast majority of torrents are copyrighted material.
- sp332 13y ago
  Unlicencesd copyrighted material. Most free software and free music/movies are copyrighted, but they are licensed for distribution.
  - opinali 13y ago
    Agreed, that's what I meant of course but trying to simplify.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Stealing was already incorrect when we were talking about copyright infringement, as the US Supreme Court has pointed out. It's definitively wrong when there's no copyright infringement at all.
coldpie 13y ago
> They want as much people as possible to use the extension so that more advertisers are forced to pay to adblock itself to allow the ads through. Is there any evidence of this happening?
- cLeEOGPw 13y ago
  Isn't a combination of ads for adblock and the revalations that google and others pay adblock to unblock their ads enough?

k_bx 13y ago

I'd understand the use of adblock that only blocks annoying ads, like pop-ups or animation / sound. But why would sane person block regular ads?

jkhaxxe 13y ago
Because I'm paying for the bandwidth, and because I'm there for the content, not the adverts, and because I can - it's my computer, I can decide what it does.
- risent 13y ago
  The content provider also paying for the bandwidth.
  - jkhaxxe 13y ago
    So? Perhaps they would also like to block the ads at the server side, and save themselves the bill? But more seriously, I don't care about their bills. They're delivering HTML over an open network connection - what I do with that HTML is entirely up to me. If they don't like that there's nothing they can do about it.
    - sdoering 13y ago
      Greetings, > I don't care about their bills [sarcasm] How farsighted. Oh how very farsighted. [sarcasm off] So you really do not care about their service being shut down, because it could not pay for itself? I mean, people working there to produce content, hardware to run the service, bandwidth, and so on...
      - jkhaxxe 13y ago
        I really don't care. I'm just not going to look at any adverts.
      - king_jester 13y ago

dm2 13y ago

How likely would advertisers be to refuse to allow the Adblock ads? I don't really have a problem with ads on websites, experienced users can easily block them, but I see no problem with providing ads for a free service. Many organizations only have three methods to generate revenue, either show advertisements, have paid memberships, or take donations. Google shows advertisements, Apple has paid memberships, Wikipedia and Apache Foundation take donations. All three are great companies, they just have different ways to generate revenue. Many websites have no choice but to move towards an advertisements method to remain operational, Adblock is trying to destroy that method of revenue and the online advertising market, it could destroy many great websites and companies that currently make money from advertising. While I'm not a huge fan of ads, they do serve a purpose, and destroying a harmless market such as online advertising without replacing it or supplementing it somehow isn't good. Plus if Adblock is actually successful and the online advertising industry collapses, then they will be putting themselves out of business.

ErikHuisman 13y ago
"Plus if Adblock is actually successful and the online advertising industry collapses, then they will be putting themselves out of business." Even worse. Some of these companies (not adblock) are asking protection money from big advertisers to be whitelisted. Mafia style.
- philliphaydon 13y ago
  A free service putting itself out of business... Can someone explain to me how that works?
  - Kudos 13y ago
    > A free service putting itself out of business... Are you suggesting a free service can't make enough money to operate a business? Man, how am I getting away with not paying for that Wikipedia subscription. Adblock operates on donations and if it were to eliminate advertising, its current product would become useless.

billadoid 13y ago

A workaround to this would be self serving the ads, in combination with dynamically named tags / divs etc. Obfuscating would complicate things, but at least it'd be a workaround. It's crazy that buySellAds hasn't taken advantage of this.

liotier 13y ago
This arms race has already begun.

painki11er 13y ago

I don't understand how ad-blocking is even legal. It's like stealing - stealing content for free, IMHO there's no difference between stealing MP3s and news or any other content. There's some kind of user agreement between websites and its users - "you can use our site for free, but you have to watch the ads". Adblock violates this agreement. The people responsible for this should be in prison, they're thieves. And I'm pretty sure the time will come they will.

uptown 13y ago
If you choose not to read billboards displayed alongside highways, is that also stealing?
- Kudos 13y ago
  That's not exactly the same as the billboards effectively not existing for you like with adblock. You still see absorb the advertisement passively.
  - ttt_ 13y ago
    > You still see absorb the advertisement passively. Good thing I have control of my software and can opt out. I'm already assaulted at the senses all day long in different forms. The whole concept of advertising I find abhorrent. A service should only offer itself to me when I want it, otherwise they are just imposing themselves and I will dislike them for that. Any way that I can opt-out of ads I will make use of. Services that rely on just this business model should adapt or fail, simply. If the service is relevant it will come again from a different source with a more acceptable model.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
Do you feel that violating any user agreement should be illegal and those who do it "should be in prison"? Furthermore, where the user agreement isn't specifically given (eg a mandatory ToS), do you feel that any agreement the site owner can claim was implied (use the site for free, watch our ads) should be legally binding?

hrjet 13y ago

Chalk that one as an example of irony. (The other front page article today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274914)

entropyneur 13y ago

It's actually pretty trivial to detect AdBlock and make your site inaccessible unless the user disables it. I've seen a couple sites doing that in the wild. Sounds like a business opportunity...

Zoomla 13y ago
I am sure they know about it... but they must have figured it isn't work blocking them (this Adblock detection technique has been around for years).

thewarrior 13y ago

Coming from the other irony thread , is this an example of irony :P ?

livestyle 13y ago

Todd Garland from BSA chimes in - http://toddgarland.com/where-adblock-misses-the-mark.html http://toddgarland.com/where-adblock-misses-the-mark.html Take away quotes -- "Seems to me like this is nothing more than a half-thought idea because they have nothing better to do and are jealous of AdBlock Plus taking bribes from ad companies to "white-list" them from being blocked." "Want to have a real impact on advertising AdBlock? Do something that puts money in publisher bank accounts and gets advertisers results that's less obtrusive than the current state of affairs. Be creative. An ad-free internet is a desert." (full disclosure I work at buysellads)