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> They also use AdBlock to basically steal content > without letting publishers recoup the production costs > and other investments. Pretty easy to b

> They also use AdBlock to basically steal content > without letting publishers recoup the production costs > and other investments. Pretty easy to block people wih AdBlock installed from viewing your content, but then they stop sharing it, too, and they're often the more tech savvy readers who would be willing to share. I bet the WSJ would see a net profit from making HN a non-paywall referrer.

manigandham 12y ago
It's not "pretty easy". Adblock works at a network level by blocking specific requests, which makes it very hard to engineer around. If you can show a different message to people with AdBlock, then you can just show them ads in the first place.
- jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
  There are sites which do display just such a message, so it's clearly not as hard as it might first sound. If you think about it, it can be as simple as just displaying a message 'underneath' an area of the screen where the blocked content would appear. Blocked content = displayed message.
  - manigandham 12y ago
    I understand your example but for most publishers, it's not about blocking the content but rather blocking the user if they have adblock installed. The only way to do that is if you serve the content and then perhaps have a request to some ads or a resource that looks like an ad and will get blocked. When the request fails, you catch it and then "hide" the content from the user or only request the content in the first place after this check. This is fragile though since the plugins can just unblock that testing resource very easily, and some already do manipulate sites like this. Either way, this sounds easy but can require lots of tech resources, SEO workarounds, accessibility requirements, etc. Just not a turnkey option. PageFair is a company that tries to offer this but they been put into the various adblock rules and are now pretty much ineffective which shows the constant arms race... and this is a company working on this fulltime.
oldmanjay 12y ago
Do you bet that based on anything other than a moral certainty that greed for content is good but greed for money is bad? I ask sincerely, because you gave no clue as to the basis of your opinion.
- peteretep 12y ago
  > than a moral certainty that greed for content is good > but greed for money is bad I base that on articles here that link to WSJ pages being relinked by moderators to ones without paywalls; each time that happens, WSJ loses ~30,000 views.

manigandham 12y ago

It's not "pretty easy". Adblock works at a network level by blocking specific requests, which makes it very hard to engineer around. If you can show a different message to people with AdBlock, then you can just show them ads in the first place.

jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
There are sites which do display just such a message, so it's clearly not as hard as it might first sound. If you think about it, it can be as simple as just displaying a message 'underneath' an area of the screen where the blocked content would appear. Blocked content = displayed message.
- manigandham 12y ago
  I understand your example but for most publishers, it's not about blocking the content but rather blocking the user if they have adblock installed. The only way to do that is if you serve the content and then perhaps have a request to some ads or a resource that looks like an ad and will get blocked. When the request fails, you catch it and then "hide" the content from the user or only request the content in the first place after this check. This is fragile though since the plugins can just unblock that testing resource very easily, and some already do manipulate sites like this. Either way, this sounds easy but can require lots of tech resources, SEO workarounds, accessibility requirements, etc. Just not a turnkey option. PageFair is a company that tries to offer this but they been put into the various adblock rules and are now pretty much ineffective which shows the constant arms race... and this is a company working on this fulltime.

oldmanjay 12y ago

Do you bet that based on anything other than a moral certainty that greed for content is good but greed for money is bad? I ask sincerely, because you gave no clue as to the basis of your opinion.

peteretep 12y ago
> than a moral certainty that greed for content is good > but greed for money is bad I base that on articles here that link to WSJ pages being relinked by moderators to ones without paywalls; each time that happens, WSJ loses ~30,000 views.