9 ms·

Advertisers got what they deserved -- annoying pop up windows, animated ads with sound, floating ads, also user tracking created a market for ads blocker. I don

by kbart 12y ago

Advertisers got what they deserved -- annoying pop up windows, animated ads with sound, floating ads, also user tracking created a market for ads blocker. I don't mind non intrusive banner ads and enable them on sites I visit frequently. Make ads user friendly and the problem will be gone (except, maybe, some geeks who will still use ad blockers, but that's minority anyway). Trying to solve problems via courts and not addressing the root cause will not help much.

scrollaway 12y ago
Indeed. I had an exchange just the other day here on HN with an advertiser. It's a starch reminder that the whole business smells rotten. As I said in my final comment, advertisers will costume themselves as the white knights protecting the businesses they deal with, but they only care about themselves - the users of said businesses are just peasants. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402372
- derefr 12y ago
  *stark reminder. Fun eggcorn!
austenallred 12y ago
Is there ad blocker that only blocks the annoying ads, not the ones that we deem "OK?" Or do we just use the actions of the few to punish all ad-supported platforms? I mean I get it, ads are yucky, privacy concerns, etc. But as someone who has used ad revenue as the only means to pay for content a lot of people loved, if too many people decide ads are too taxing for them to view, the content can no longer be supported. I fear that as adblocker becomes more standard (I'm not sure it's only geeks using it; I have plenty of friends who aren't "geeks" who do), ad-supported companies will start to not allow you to see content if you have an adblocker on (like ESPN) or just make more native content. Creating things to read or view costs money. If we say the people that create them don't deserve to make that money back through ad revenue, we also have to be aware of the consequences - that this type of content will largely cease to exist. It's your prerogative at the end of the day, but a lot of the stuff I love wouldn't exist without advertising.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I'm all fine with people creating content and then expect to make some money off ads. Just don't be an asshole about that. There are sites that have mostly unobtrusive ads, I'm fine with that. There are sites (like Episode Calendar) that politely ask you to turn AdBlock off when you're using a free account, and since I derive some value from them, I happily comply. But my issue, and I guess that of many other users, is that ads are mostly a scam. Products that are actually valuable to the buyers don't need aggressive advertising; just announcing that they exist (through unobtrusive ads) is usually enough for the word of mouth to bring in customers. Advertising companies are one of the best examples of an adage I have - "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to be separated from it by enough layers of abstraction". Ad companies are those layers of abstraction. They will lie, they will spam, they will abuse users and as a CEO who outsourced customer acquisition to them you may never have an accurate picture of just how much crap people are exposed to on your behalf.
  - monksy 12y ago
    Also, theres OkCupid who puts up a nagging image try tries to pressure/guilt trip you into turning it off for the site.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      Yes, there are also sites like that, and such behaviour tends to drive me away. There's a discussion forum I visited today that had a banner saying "We see you're using an ad blocker. By doing so, you're contributing to the downfall of this community". Well, I like the site, but guess what - I keep my AdBlock active on purpose. This whole issue is about Human Decency 101. If you behave like an entitled asshole, don't be surprised people don't do what you want them to, like viewing obtrusive ads.
      - k-mcgrady 12y ago
        >> "This whole issue is about Human Decency 101. If you behave like an entitled asshole, don't be surprised people don't do what you want them to." That could also apply to you. You want content. You don't want to pay for it - but you will view ads. But then only ads that fit your specific set of criteria.
raldu 12y ago
Exactly. Even if they did win the case, that wouldn't make any difference because I have the right to make any changes to the computer that I own, and the right to treat "every advertisement as spam", which they actually are. Thus I can and will make any changes necessary to ignore the intrusive content that I don't care about, that forcefully attempts to catch my limited attention, that consumes my bandwidth, creeps my browsing habits to collect data about me without my consent, all for the profit of somebody I do not know... It is no different than encountering a guy at every corner who asks for your money in exchange of some product that you do not know or care about, every minute. This is no exaggeration. There are better ways to inform customers about any product.
- iwwr 12y ago
  >that wouldn't make any difference because I have the right to make any changes to the computer that I own Diminishing Adblock's business model also removes development resources from adblock which would impact negatively your ability to filter ads. However, I found AdBlock a little too heavy or laggy and use uBlock nowadays.
wlesieutre 12y ago
> Advertisers got what they deserved -- annoying pop up windows, animated ads with sound, floating ads, also user tracking Don't forget the malware that installs over exploited ad networks every few months. And the inevitable responses from websites: "I'm not responsible for the malware you got from my site, all I did was let an untrusted 3rd party inject arbitrary content into the page, and they did a bad thing with it! Nothing I could have done to prevent it!" Except, you know, not letting some random jackass with an ad network distribute exploits through your website.
- jdangu 12y ago
  I don't know why you're implying malvertising only hits random jackasses. Google has been hit several times by exploit kit-based attacks over the last few weeks.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    I was throwing Google in the jackasses pile, in the context of building their whole business around an advertising model that has their potentially insecure code/assets inserted into the vast majority of all websites. Maybe they're not random jackasses though. But seriously, the whole infrastructure of our online ad system just feels like a terrible idea to me. Advertisers want their analytics data from having all the requests hit their servers though, so it's not going anywhere unless Patreon and similar catch on in a big way. Has Google actually served exploits, or is it just their selling ads for fake downloads of Firefox, VLC, etc with malware in the installers?
    - tracker1 12y ago
      Google Adsense/Adwords (I always mix up the two, really host/advertiser portals to the same service) isn't the same as DFP (formerly doubleclick) which does open things up to affiliate networks and isn't as tightly controlled.
  - ceph_ 12y ago
    Google ads linked to site that contained a malware laden download of google ads directly served an exploit? The parent is talking about the latter, which I have not heard of happening to Google. Do you have a link about that? I do remember hearing about the ad for a third party Firefox download bundled with a malware toolbar. Which, while bad, is quite different.
eps 12y ago
I don't follow. If these are pay-per-click ads, then there's zero difference to the publishers if I see them or not, because I will never click on one as a matter of principle. If these are pay-per-impression ads, then an ad blocker that downloads ads without displaying them should be just fine with the publishers. Either way I see absolutely no point in keeping ads in the content if/when they can be trimmed away.
- shusain 12y ago
  It defeats the purpose if you don't see the ad. Even if you don't plan on clicking on it, seeing it will build awareness of the product or service. That awareness could translate into a sale somewhere down the line (eg. someone tells you about a problem they have and you say "hey I saw an ad for a product that tackles that").
  - eps 12y ago
    I deliberately don't look at the ads. If one manages to slip itself into my view, I take it as a personal offense. Meaning that if your precious ad manages to "build an awareness", it's the awareness you don't actually want as it's attached to a negative emotion. So tell me again what's the purpose of forcing an ad down my throat, an action that is guaranteed to piss me off?
balabaster 12y ago
Exactly - if they'd followed the cardinal rule of "don't piss people off" there would never have been a market to solve this problem... as it would never have become a problem worth resolving.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
I believe this is the key, just because you could do something (like animation) has never meant that you should. While I don't doubt it might initially raise your click through rates, it wasn't durable. The thing for me is that using AdBlock and Ghostery easily triples the speed at which pages load. Those advertisers are slow to respond to page requests and it just takes forever to render. The other interesting thing to me is that price for an advertisement in a magazine that a 4 million people see generates over 10x the revenue that the same ad on web page that 4 million people see. Not sure how we're going to fix that.
- stevesearer 12y ago
  As a publisher, I'm excited to be finally at the point where I can remove Adsense as a revenue source (and will May 1). A lot of people find ads that follow you around the internet to be creepy and they often ruin the experience by either being slow or jarring in comparison to our direct-sold advertisements. One frustrating thing about Ad Blockers though is that even my "non-annoying" advertisements and up getting blocked in many cases because they fit the size profile or are wrapped in a particular class name. Magazine readers also happily pay for access to the magazine content which also contains advertisements. For some reason the discussion regarding website ads is either 'pay for access' or 'see advertisements', but I see premium online content going the way of magazines and combining 'pay for access' and 'see advertisements'. People willing to pay for content are generally going to be the exact people worth advertising at.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    And that pretty much sums up the tragedy right? I'm happy to not block advertisements that are part of the page and "well behaved" but the bad actors compel me to employ an imperfect club which is not selective in its action. I recall visiting Dr. Dobb's offices back when they were a print magazine and there were a bunch of people who were responsible for ad sales/layout/checking and AdSense out sourced all of that for web site owners. Which was cool, until it was abused. So how many web sites are willing to do ad sales? Interesting opportunity there.
cmdrfred 12y ago
Don't forget the full page take-over-your-screen 'fbi' warnings that you can't close.
belorn 12y ago
Advertisers should focus on people who want to see ads and respect people who explicit ask to be left alone. Where I live, advertisement in the mail box (the one on the house) is forbidden if I have a small sign saying "no advertisement, thank you". This rule has not destroyed the advertisement industry, nor those who uses advertisements to raise sales. Instead it has created a large incentives for stores to get customers to agree with personal advertisement, with coupons, special deals, or a flat 1-5% return of anything purchased. The customer is happy, the store is happy, and those who want to be left alone is happy. Additionally, people do not hate the advertisement or those who produce it.

by kbart 12y ago

scrollaway 12y ago

Indeed. I had an exchange just the other day here on HN with an advertiser. It's a starch reminder that the whole business smells rotten. As I said in my final comment, advertisers will costume themselves as the white knights protecting the businesses they deal with, but they only care about themselves - the users of said businesses are just peasants. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402372

derefr 12y ago
*stark reminder. Fun eggcorn!

austenallred 12y ago

Is there ad blocker that only blocks the annoying ads, not the ones that we deem "OK?" Or do we just use the actions of the few to punish all ad-supported platforms? I mean I get it, ads are yucky, privacy concerns, etc. But as someone who has used ad revenue as the only means to pay for content a lot of people loved, if too many people decide ads are too taxing for them to view, the content can no longer be supported. I fear that as adblocker becomes more standard (I'm not sure it's only geeks using it; I have plenty of friends who aren't "geeks" who do), ad-supported companies will start to not allow you to see content if you have an adblocker on (like ESPN) or just make more native content. Creating things to read or view costs money. If we say the people that create them don't deserve to make that money back through ad revenue, we also have to be aware of the consequences - that this type of content will largely cease to exist. It's your prerogative at the end of the day, but a lot of the stuff I love wouldn't exist without advertising.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
I'm all fine with people creating content and then expect to make some money off ads. Just don't be an asshole about that. There are sites that have mostly unobtrusive ads, I'm fine with that. There are sites (like Episode Calendar) that politely ask you to turn AdBlock off when you're using a free account, and since I derive some value from them, I happily comply. But my issue, and I guess that of many other users, is that ads are mostly a scam. Products that are actually valuable to the buyers don't need aggressive advertising; just announcing that they exist (through unobtrusive ads) is usually enough for the word of mouth to bring in customers. Advertising companies are one of the best examples of an adage I have - "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to be separated from it by enough layers of abstraction". Ad companies are those layers of abstraction. They will lie, they will spam, they will abuse users and as a CEO who outsourced customer acquisition to them you may never have an accurate picture of just how much crap people are exposed to on your behalf.
- monksy 12y ago
  Also, theres OkCupid who puts up a nagging image try tries to pressure/guilt trip you into turning it off for the site.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Yes, there are also sites like that, and such behaviour tends to drive me away. There's a discussion forum I visited today that had a banner saying "We see you're using an ad blocker. By doing so, you're contributing to the downfall of this community". Well, I like the site, but guess what - I keep my AdBlock active on purpose. This whole issue is about Human Decency 101. If you behave like an entitled asshole, don't be surprised people don't do what you want them to, like viewing obtrusive ads.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      >> "This whole issue is about Human Decency 101. If you behave like an entitled asshole, don't be surprised people don't do what you want them to." That could also apply to you. You want content. You don't want to pay for it - but you will view ads. But then only ads that fit your specific set of criteria.

raldu 12y ago

Exactly. Even if they did win the case, that wouldn't make any difference because I have the right to make any changes to the computer that I own, and the right to treat "every advertisement as spam", which they actually are. Thus I can and will make any changes necessary to ignore the intrusive content that I don't care about, that forcefully attempts to catch my limited attention, that consumes my bandwidth, creeps my browsing habits to collect data about me without my consent, all for the profit of somebody I do not know... It is no different than encountering a guy at every corner who asks for your money in exchange of some product that you do not know or care about, every minute. This is no exaggeration. There are better ways to inform customers about any product.

iwwr 12y ago
>that wouldn't make any difference because I have the right to make any changes to the computer that I own Diminishing Adblock's business model also removes development resources from adblock which would impact negatively your ability to filter ads. However, I found AdBlock a little too heavy or laggy and use uBlock nowadays.

wlesieutre 12y ago

> Advertisers got what they deserved -- annoying pop up windows, animated ads with sound, floating ads, also user tracking Don't forget the malware that installs over exploited ad networks every few months. And the inevitable responses from websites: "I'm not responsible for the malware you got from my site, all I did was let an untrusted 3rd party inject arbitrary content into the page, and they did a bad thing with it! Nothing I could have done to prevent it!" Except, you know, not letting some random jackass with an ad network distribute exploits through your website.

jdangu 12y ago
I don't know why you're implying malvertising only hits random jackasses. Google has been hit several times by exploit kit-based attacks over the last few weeks.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  I was throwing Google in the jackasses pile, in the context of building their whole business around an advertising model that has their potentially insecure code/assets inserted into the vast majority of all websites. Maybe they're not random jackasses though. But seriously, the whole infrastructure of our online ad system just feels like a terrible idea to me. Advertisers want their analytics data from having all the requests hit their servers though, so it's not going anywhere unless Patreon and similar catch on in a big way. Has Google actually served exploits, or is it just their selling ads for fake downloads of Firefox, VLC, etc with malware in the installers?
  - tracker1 12y ago
    Google Adsense/Adwords (I always mix up the two, really host/advertiser portals to the same service) isn't the same as DFP (formerly doubleclick) which does open things up to affiliate networks and isn't as tightly controlled.
- ceph_ 12y ago
  Google ads linked to site that contained a malware laden download of google ads directly served an exploit? The parent is talking about the latter, which I have not heard of happening to Google. Do you have a link about that? I do remember hearing about the ad for a third party Firefox download bundled with a malware toolbar. Which, while bad, is quite different.

eps 12y ago

I don't follow. If these are pay-per-click ads, then there's zero difference to the publishers if I see them or not, because I will never click on one as a matter of principle. If these are pay-per-impression ads, then an ad blocker that downloads ads without displaying them should be just fine with the publishers. Either way I see absolutely no point in keeping ads in the content if/when they can be trimmed away.

shusain 12y ago
It defeats the purpose if you don't see the ad. Even if you don't plan on clicking on it, seeing it will build awareness of the product or service. That awareness could translate into a sale somewhere down the line (eg. someone tells you about a problem they have and you say "hey I saw an ad for a product that tackles that").
- eps 12y ago
  I deliberately don't look at the ads. If one manages to slip itself into my view, I take it as a personal offense. Meaning that if your precious ad manages to "build an awareness", it's the awareness you don't actually want as it's attached to a negative emotion. So tell me again what's the purpose of forcing an ad down my throat, an action that is guaranteed to piss me off?

balabaster 12y ago

Exactly - if they'd followed the cardinal rule of "don't piss people off" there would never have been a market to solve this problem... as it would never have become a problem worth resolving.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I believe this is the key, just because you could do something (like animation) has never meant that you should. While I don't doubt it might initially raise your click through rates, it wasn't durable. The thing for me is that using AdBlock and Ghostery easily triples the speed at which pages load. Those advertisers are slow to respond to page requests and it just takes forever to render. The other interesting thing to me is that price for an advertisement in a magazine that a 4 million people see generates over 10x the revenue that the same ad on web page that 4 million people see. Not sure how we're going to fix that.

stevesearer 12y ago
As a publisher, I'm excited to be finally at the point where I can remove Adsense as a revenue source (and will May 1). A lot of people find ads that follow you around the internet to be creepy and they often ruin the experience by either being slow or jarring in comparison to our direct-sold advertisements. One frustrating thing about Ad Blockers though is that even my "non-annoying" advertisements and up getting blocked in many cases because they fit the size profile or are wrapped in a particular class name. Magazine readers also happily pay for access to the magazine content which also contains advertisements. For some reason the discussion regarding website ads is either 'pay for access' or 'see advertisements', but I see premium online content going the way of magazines and combining 'pay for access' and 'see advertisements'. People willing to pay for content are generally going to be the exact people worth advertising at.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  And that pretty much sums up the tragedy right? I'm happy to not block advertisements that are part of the page and "well behaved" but the bad actors compel me to employ an imperfect club which is not selective in its action. I recall visiting Dr. Dobb's offices back when they were a print magazine and there were a bunch of people who were responsible for ad sales/layout/checking and AdSense out sourced all of that for web site owners. Which was cool, until it was abused. So how many web sites are willing to do ad sales? Interesting opportunity there.

cmdrfred 12y ago

Don't forget the full page take-over-your-screen 'fbi' warnings that you can't close.

belorn 12y ago

Advertisers should focus on people who want to see ads and respect people who explicit ask to be left alone. Where I live, advertisement in the mail box (the one on the house) is forbidden if I have a small sign saying "no advertisement, thank you". This rule has not destroyed the advertisement industry, nor those who uses advertisements to raise sales. Instead it has created a large incentives for stores to get customers to agree with personal advertisement, with coupons, special deals, or a flat 1-5% return of anything purchased. The customer is happy, the store is happy, and those who want to be left alone is happy. Additionally, people do not hate the advertisement or those who produce it.