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In addition to blocking ads, I suggest anyone implementing this also blocks all websites containing ads. Why? When you "say goodbye to ads" you're also saying

In addition to blocking ads, I suggest anyone implementing this also blocks all websites containing ads. Why? When you "say goodbye to ads" you're also saying goodbye to the source of income that pays the people who made the website. No money, means no employees to create the website, means no more website. Not everything can be open source / free. Nor should it be. People deserve to be able to make a living doing the work they do.

derefr 13y ago
> When you "say goodbye to ads" you're also saying goodbye to the source of income that pays the people who made the website. No you're not; you're just preemptively indicating your decision to be part of the "free-rider tier" of their system. Most business models aren't built on making money from every customer equally. See free-to-play games, for example: 90% of people pay nothing, 9% of people pay $10 or so, and 1% of people ("whales") pay ridiculous amounts that sustain the business. They don't want the 90% to start paying--they want the 90% to talk about "this great free game they found" to achieve a network-effect that brings more whales to their funnel. Now, if Firefox and Chrome and IE integrated ad-blockers, they'd be responsible for "saying goodbye to the source of income that pays the people who made the website." But your using an ad-blocker when you weren't in the target demographic for the ads anyway (the target demographic is always at least "is willing to click an ad" and "has money to spend") makes no more difference to the site than your voting in a non-swing state makes to the results of an election. Keep in mind: if a site really wanted to, it could detect that ads are loaded and displaying before it shows you the content. But nobody asks for this feature; goodwill toward free-riders is a necessary part of doing business.
- JacobJans 13y ago
  > your using an ad-blocker when you weren't in the target demographic for the ads anyway ... makes no more difference to the site than your voting in a non-swing state makes to the results of an election. Good luck creating an ad block software that automatically determines whether or not you are in the 'target demographic' before filtering the ad! (And if you think you're not in the target demographic because you don't spend money, and you don't click on ads, then you have a very limited understanding of the ad business.) > you're just preemptively indicating your decision to be part of the "free-rider tier" of their system. This is just a fancy way of saying "I don't click on ads, therefore it's OK to block them." That's a bad argument that reflects very little on the reality of how advertising works. > Now, if Firefox and Chrome and IE integrated ad-blockers, they'd be responsible for "saying goodbye to the source of income that pays the people who made the website." You have a good argument here. People who create and promote ad blocking software have a destructive effect on websites. They actively work to reduce the revenue generated by websites, which in turn reduces the budgets for those websites, which lowers quality. The bottom line is that websites depend on advertisements in order to exist. If you are blocking ads, then you are voting for those websites to not exist.
  - derefr 13y ago
    > if you think you're not in the target demographic because you don't spend money, and you don't click on ads, then you have a very limited understanding of the ad business No, I understand the ad business perfectly well; that is entirely different from thinking CPM ads make sense on the Internet. They're in inherent conflict with how people use the Internet, and create bad incentives for content publishers (in contrast to CPC ads.) Websites, due to their interactive, choice-based nature ("what links do I open next", etc.), can be analyzed using game design theory. "Banner blindness" is a well-known problem for CPM advertisers, but at a fundamental level it is one of the principles of game design: a player, with the "algorithm" of a game fully loaded into their mind won't bother to mentally process anything which has no game-mechanical effect. Once you see which part of the website is "the content", your brain enters a mode (in the vi/emacs sense of the term) where anything other than content on the page will be filtered out at a pre-conscious level.
    - JacobJans 13y ago
      Again, you don't really understand how advertising works. In fact, you've clicked on an ad today without realizing it. Few people will admit to clicking on ads. And they will probably honestly believe that they don't click on ads. The best ads work when you don't even realize they are an advertisement. The best ads are a service that benefits you. Hacker News is a prime example: In a sense, it is a giant advertisement for YCombinator. We don't think of it as an ad, because it provides value to us as more than an ad. Here you are, in the middle of an ad. Most people, when clicking on an ad, don't think about the fact that it's an ad. They click because the ad offered something interesting to them. It is not always even obvious what is an ad, and what is not. The lines get very blurry. For example, 'guest posts' on a blog, sponsored posts, 'paid links', etc. There are many, many various types of advertisements. But even when ads are obviously ads, such as Google Ads, they aren't necessarily obvious when you are interacting with them. Effective advertisement is transparent. Indeed, there is a blindness to it: You don't even realize it is an ad. Again, think of Hacker News. > No, I understand the ad business perfectly well; that is entirely different from thinking CPM ads make sense on the Internet. So, you're saying CPM ads don't make sense, therefore we should block them as a revenue source for websites? > Once you see which part of the website is "the content", your brain enters a mode (in the vi sense of the term) where anything other than content on the page will be filtered out at a pre-conscious level. If this is how the world worked, then advertising simply would not be effective. For example, in a print magazine it is generally super easy to differentiate between the ads and the content. And yet, magazines such as the New Yorker continue to make money hands over fist. On most of my websites, the ads are very easy to differentiate from the content, and yet people still click on that at alarmingly high rates. (Yes, it is alarmingly high, and I'm thankful for it every day!) "Banner blindness" is a nice theory, but the world simply doesn't work that way. People ignore ads when the ads aren't relevant to them. For general audience websites that have a large amount of CPM advertising, such as Yahoo, this can be a problem. It is a problem they are not addressing very effectively, in my opinion. But the problem is not 'banner blindness', the problem is poorly targeted advertisements. Ad Blockers exist, in my opinion, because of the many scammy/spammy ads that seem to appear in place of well targeted/high quality advertisements. And it IS a problem.
boomlinde 13y ago
> People deserve to be able to make a living doing the work they do. Yes, but if they earn their living by trying to trick me into buying something by displaying an animation that I could avoid watching by simply not downloading it, I deserve not to make their living.
- JacobJans 13y ago
  If an animation tricks you into buying something, then it must incredibly magical. I'm imagining the animation somehow inducing you to open your wallet, get out your credit card, type in the credit card number, and your billing address, and then clicking 'Pay Now.' I want to know how this animation works. PLEASE TELL ME!
  - mistercow 13y ago
    The more common scenario is tricking you into clicking the wrong link or even downloading something. Softpedia's download page[1] is a perfect example of this. [1] http://darkpatterns.org/images/Softpedia-final-470x333.png http://darkpatterns.org/images/Softpedia-final-470x333.png
  - boomlinde 13y ago
    I didn't say it works, but yes, the point of commercial advertisement is to trick you into buying things. I'm sure you can think of a less blunt way to say it, but I'm not sure how you could argue with it.
mike-cardwell 13y ago
They're not Ads. They're malware distribution and tracking networks. It is unsafe to browse the web without blocking Ads. I would recommend everyone blocks them, for their own security and privacy. When websites start displaying Ads in a manner that doesn't allow cross site tracking, and in a way that doesn't create massive centralised points of failure for the web, I might start letting them onto my network.
- eli 13y ago
  Disallowing 3rd party cookies will end cross-site tracking. (In practice, opting out[1] will pretty much cover you too, but I understand why you might not trust it.) [1] http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/
  - mike-cardwell 13y ago
    Disallowing 3rd party cookies wont end cross-site tracking. They want to do it so they will find ways to do it. Even if they ignore all of the obvious and underhand methods like exploiting E-Tags and Cache headers, they can always just track clients across sites based on their IP address. Yes, that is not as accurate as using cookies, but it is accurate enough to make more money than they would make by not doing it.
- unnuun 13y ago
  You're so rad, man. Major respect.
GeorgeOrr 13y ago
Of course people deserve to be able to make a living doing the work they do. However, they don't get to dictate my behaviour as part of their business model. I'll decide what my computer renders to my screen. They don't have to run their business like I want, and I don't have to run my computer screen like they want.

derefr 13y ago

> When you "say goodbye to ads" you're also saying goodbye to the source of income that pays the people who made the website. No you're not; you're just preemptively indicating your decision to be part of the "free-rider tier" of their system. Most business models aren't built on making money from every customer equally. See free-to-play games, for example: 90% of people pay nothing, 9% of people pay $10 or so, and 1% of people ("whales") pay ridiculous amounts that sustain the business. They don't want the 90% to start paying--they want the 90% to talk about "this great free game they found" to achieve a network-effect that brings more whales to their funnel. Now, if Firefox and Chrome and IE integrated ad-blockers, they'd be responsible for "saying goodbye to the source of income that pays the people who made the website." But your using an ad-blocker when you weren't in the target demographic for the ads anyway (the target demographic is always at least "is willing to click an ad" and "has money to spend") makes no more difference to the site than your voting in a non-swing state makes to the results of an election. Keep in mind: if a site really wanted to, it could detect that ads are loaded and displaying before it shows you the content. But nobody asks for this feature; goodwill toward free-riders is a necessary part of doing business.

JacobJans 13y ago
> your using an ad-blocker when you weren't in the target demographic for the ads anyway ... makes no more difference to the site than your voting in a non-swing state makes to the results of an election. Good luck creating an ad block software that automatically determines whether or not you are in the 'target demographic' before filtering the ad! (And if you think you're not in the target demographic because you don't spend money, and you don't click on ads, then you have a very limited understanding of the ad business.) > you're just preemptively indicating your decision to be part of the "free-rider tier" of their system. This is just a fancy way of saying "I don't click on ads, therefore it's OK to block them." That's a bad argument that reflects very little on the reality of how advertising works. > Now, if Firefox and Chrome and IE integrated ad-blockers, they'd be responsible for "saying goodbye to the source of income that pays the people who made the website." You have a good argument here. People who create and promote ad blocking software have a destructive effect on websites. They actively work to reduce the revenue generated by websites, which in turn reduces the budgets for those websites, which lowers quality. The bottom line is that websites depend on advertisements in order to exist. If you are blocking ads, then you are voting for those websites to not exist.
- derefr 13y ago
  > if you think you're not in the target demographic because you don't spend money, and you don't click on ads, then you have a very limited understanding of the ad business No, I understand the ad business perfectly well; that is entirely different from thinking CPM ads make sense on the Internet. They're in inherent conflict with how people use the Internet, and create bad incentives for content publishers (in contrast to CPC ads.) Websites, due to their interactive, choice-based nature ("what links do I open next", etc.), can be analyzed using game design theory. "Banner blindness" is a well-known problem for CPM advertisers, but at a fundamental level it is one of the principles of game design: a player, with the "algorithm" of a game fully loaded into their mind won't bother to mentally process anything which has no game-mechanical effect. Once you see which part of the website is "the content", your brain enters a mode (in the vi/emacs sense of the term) where anything other than content on the page will be filtered out at a pre-conscious level.
  - JacobJans 13y ago
    Again, you don't really understand how advertising works. In fact, you've clicked on an ad today without realizing it. Few people will admit to clicking on ads. And they will probably honestly believe that they don't click on ads. The best ads work when you don't even realize they are an advertisement. The best ads are a service that benefits you. Hacker News is a prime example: In a sense, it is a giant advertisement for YCombinator. We don't think of it as an ad, because it provides value to us as more than an ad. Here you are, in the middle of an ad. Most people, when clicking on an ad, don't think about the fact that it's an ad. They click because the ad offered something interesting to them. It is not always even obvious what is an ad, and what is not. The lines get very blurry. For example, 'guest posts' on a blog, sponsored posts, 'paid links', etc. There are many, many various types of advertisements. But even when ads are obviously ads, such as Google Ads, they aren't necessarily obvious when you are interacting with them. Effective advertisement is transparent. Indeed, there is a blindness to it: You don't even realize it is an ad. Again, think of Hacker News. > No, I understand the ad business perfectly well; that is entirely different from thinking CPM ads make sense on the Internet. So, you're saying CPM ads don't make sense, therefore we should block them as a revenue source for websites? > Once you see which part of the website is "the content", your brain enters a mode (in the vi sense of the term) where anything other than content on the page will be filtered out at a pre-conscious level. If this is how the world worked, then advertising simply would not be effective. For example, in a print magazine it is generally super easy to differentiate between the ads and the content. And yet, magazines such as the New Yorker continue to make money hands over fist. On most of my websites, the ads are very easy to differentiate from the content, and yet people still click on that at alarmingly high rates. (Yes, it is alarmingly high, and I'm thankful for it every day!) "Banner blindness" is a nice theory, but the world simply doesn't work that way. People ignore ads when the ads aren't relevant to them. For general audience websites that have a large amount of CPM advertising, such as Yahoo, this can be a problem. It is a problem they are not addressing very effectively, in my opinion. But the problem is not 'banner blindness', the problem is poorly targeted advertisements. Ad Blockers exist, in my opinion, because of the many scammy/spammy ads that seem to appear in place of well targeted/high quality advertisements. And it IS a problem.

boomlinde 13y ago

> People deserve to be able to make a living doing the work they do. Yes, but if they earn their living by trying to trick me into buying something by displaying an animation that I could avoid watching by simply not downloading it, I deserve not to make their living.

JacobJans 13y ago
If an animation tricks you into buying something, then it must incredibly magical. I'm imagining the animation somehow inducing you to open your wallet, get out your credit card, type in the credit card number, and your billing address, and then clicking 'Pay Now.' I want to know how this animation works. PLEASE TELL ME!
- mistercow 13y ago
  The more common scenario is tricking you into clicking the wrong link or even downloading something. Softpedia's download page[1] is a perfect example of this. [1] http://darkpatterns.org/images/Softpedia-final-470x333.png http://darkpatterns.org/images/Softpedia-final-470x333.png
- boomlinde 13y ago
  I didn't say it works, but yes, the point of commercial advertisement is to trick you into buying things. I'm sure you can think of a less blunt way to say it, but I'm not sure how you could argue with it.

mike-cardwell 13y ago

They're not Ads. They're malware distribution and tracking networks. It is unsafe to browse the web without blocking Ads. I would recommend everyone blocks them, for their own security and privacy. When websites start displaying Ads in a manner that doesn't allow cross site tracking, and in a way that doesn't create massive centralised points of failure for the web, I might start letting them onto my network.

eli 13y ago
Disallowing 3rd party cookies will end cross-site tracking. (In practice, opting out[1] will pretty much cover you too, but I understand why you might not trust it.) [1] http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/
- mike-cardwell 13y ago
  Disallowing 3rd party cookies wont end cross-site tracking. They want to do it so they will find ways to do it. Even if they ignore all of the obvious and underhand methods like exploiting E-Tags and Cache headers, they can always just track clients across sites based on their IP address. Yes, that is not as accurate as using cookies, but it is accurate enough to make more money than they would make by not doing it.
unnuun 13y ago
You're so rad, man. Major respect.

GeorgeOrr 13y ago

Of course people deserve to be able to make a living doing the work they do. However, they don't get to dictate my behaviour as part of their business model. I'll decide what my computer renders to my screen. They don't have to run their business like I want, and I don't have to run my computer screen like they want.