5 ms·

You give them way too much credit. The simplest ad blocker is just a user stylesheet that hides "class='ad'". The complex ad blockers include variants of that

by seiji 11y ago

You give them way too much credit. The simplest ad blocker is just a user stylesheet that hides "class='ad'". The complex ad blockers include variants of that as well as network-blocking bad domains, but publishers+advertisers are really really dumb in aggregate.

modeless 11y ago
They're not "dumb", it's just not worth the effort for them to obfuscate their ads yet. That will change.
- seiji 11y ago
  Postulate: there's no automated ad-injection platform that also can't be hidden or blocked by automation. Google could transcode ads directly into YouTube videos, but they don't. They preroll or popover and both can be blocked. If YouTube did transcode pre-roll ads, we'd have an auto-skipper. If YouTube transcoded hard popovers on videos, well, that would probably upset more video authors than consumers.
  - untog 11y ago
    Easy - they just get more pernicious. For an example, try this product placement in I, Robot, back in 2004: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HpIZrOH4zc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HpIZrOH4zc Even though it's set in the future they manage to sell them as being retro cool. It's almost impressive. I take the pessimistic viewpoint that ads are going to seep in no matter what. The harder you make it, they more they'll mask themselves. Personally, I'd prefer banner ads.
    - seiji 11y ago
      product placement != invasive advertising. advertorials blur the line a bit, but it's not the same as plastering animated "they hate this ohio school teacher for knowing the secret of eternal youth!" ads all over my news. (free bonus: every 2,000th ad includes a free flash-delivered root kit!) plus, with a transparent AR setup with proper overlay ability, you can in-reality block photons bounced off or emanated from advertising units (billboards, bumper stickers, old spice commercials, etc) from even hitting your retinas.
      - untog 11y ago
        Again, IMO, but product placement is worse. I know invasive advertising is advertising. Mentally speaking it's quite easy to disregard. Product placement slowly blurs the lines to the point where you don't know if someone is honestly advocating for a great product or if they're being paid to do so.
        seiji 11y ago
        If you are watching something produced by a production company (anything on TV or any movie) every brand you see is paid placement. It's like how before a movie comes out, all the actors in the movie go on all the talk shows. Think it just happens by magic coincidence? It's contractually part of their job to appear and promote the properties they appear in so it drives up demand for their productions (movies/books/tv shows/congresscritters).
  - moonchrome 11y ago
    >If YouTube did transcode pre-roll ads, we'd have an auto-skipper. Don't respond to user seek commands until the add is done playing - at that point best they can do is block output and wait - which ends up a similar experience to just watching the ad for classic 2-10 min video youtube browsing or songs - for longer content buffering could work.
    - wtallis 11y ago
      Yeah, but is it really worth it for the server to keep track of when the ad should be done playing and refuse to deliver the rest of the stream until then? Because trying to do that in Javascript is a losing game.
    - qu4z-2 11y ago
      For me personally the change between "30s pre-feature ad" to "30s pre-feature darkness/silence" is more important than the change from there to "start playing straight away". I don't mind waiting, but I don't want things fighting over my attention.
Encosia 11y ago
I get the impression that today's CTR-driven advertisers would prefer not to show ads to folks who are actively trying to block them, because they would almost never have generated useful clicks anyway. Kind of like how online scammers purposely don't even try to sound legit, so that their leads are better qualified when the gullible do eventually respond. Effort invested in technical solutions to work around ad blockers might just lower CTRs and be worse for everyone involved. (edit: I don't mean to insinuate that online advertising is anything like a scam; just that there are parallels in terms of targeting the correct audience so that the effort is effective.)
- specialk 11y ago
  I know this probably sounds counter-intuitive but the company that provided the report mentioned twice in the article also have a blog post about how adblock users click more ads than non-adblocking users[1]. There's not much detail in the article to back up their claim but it's an interesting idea to play around with. [1] http://blog.pagefair.com/2015/adblock-users-click-more-ads/ http://blog.pagefair.com/2015/adblock-users-click-more-ads/
  - Encosia 11y ago
    That is definitely interesting. I wonder if it's because they're more likely to be contextually interested in ads on a site that they would go to the effort of whitelisting, but that wouldn't actually be the case overall if they were seeing every site's ads?
    - philwelch 11y ago
      I think it's because people who use adblockers aren't used to tuning out ads.

by seiji 11y ago

modeless 11y ago

They're not "dumb", it's just not worth the effort for them to obfuscate their ads yet. That will change.

seiji 11y ago
Postulate: there's no automated ad-injection platform that also can't be hidden or blocked by automation. Google could transcode ads directly into YouTube videos, but they don't. They preroll or popover and both can be blocked. If YouTube did transcode pre-roll ads, we'd have an auto-skipper. If YouTube transcoded hard popovers on videos, well, that would probably upset more video authors than consumers.
- untog 11y ago
  Easy - they just get more pernicious. For an example, try this product placement in I, Robot, back in 2004: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HpIZrOH4zc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HpIZrOH4zc Even though it's set in the future they manage to sell them as being retro cool. It's almost impressive. I take the pessimistic viewpoint that ads are going to seep in no matter what. The harder you make it, they more they'll mask themselves. Personally, I'd prefer banner ads.
  - seiji 11y ago
    product placement != invasive advertising. advertorials blur the line a bit, but it's not the same as plastering animated "they hate this ohio school teacher for knowing the secret of eternal youth!" ads all over my news. (free bonus: every 2,000th ad includes a free flash-delivered root kit!) plus, with a transparent AR setup with proper overlay ability, you can in-reality block photons bounced off or emanated from advertising units (billboards, bumper stickers, old spice commercials, etc) from even hitting your retinas.
    - untog 11y ago
      Again, IMO, but product placement is worse. I know invasive advertising is advertising. Mentally speaking it's quite easy to disregard. Product placement slowly blurs the lines to the point where you don't know if someone is honestly advocating for a great product or if they're being paid to do so.
      - seiji 11y ago
        If you are watching something produced by a production company (anything on TV or any movie) every brand you see is paid placement. It's like how before a movie comes out, all the actors in the movie go on all the talk shows. Think it just happens by magic coincidence? It's contractually part of their job to appear and promote the properties they appear in so it drives up demand for their productions (movies/books/tv shows/congresscritters).
- moonchrome 11y ago
  >If YouTube did transcode pre-roll ads, we'd have an auto-skipper. Don't respond to user seek commands until the add is done playing - at that point best they can do is block output and wait - which ends up a similar experience to just watching the ad for classic 2-10 min video youtube browsing or songs - for longer content buffering could work.
  - wtallis 11y ago
    Yeah, but is it really worth it for the server to keep track of when the ad should be done playing and refuse to deliver the rest of the stream until then? Because trying to do that in Javascript is a losing game.
  - qu4z-2 11y ago
    For me personally the change between "30s pre-feature ad" to "30s pre-feature darkness/silence" is more important than the change from there to "start playing straight away". I don't mind waiting, but I don't want things fighting over my attention.

Encosia 11y ago

I get the impression that today's CTR-driven advertisers would prefer not to show ads to folks who are actively trying to block them, because they would almost never have generated useful clicks anyway. Kind of like how online scammers purposely don't even try to sound legit, so that their leads are better qualified when the gullible do eventually respond. Effort invested in technical solutions to work around ad blockers might just lower CTRs and be worse for everyone involved. (edit: I don't mean to insinuate that online advertising is anything like a scam; just that there are parallels in terms of targeting the correct audience so that the effort is effective.)

specialk 11y ago
I know this probably sounds counter-intuitive but the company that provided the report mentioned twice in the article also have a blog post about how adblock users click more ads than non-adblocking users[1]. There's not much detail in the article to back up their claim but it's an interesting idea to play around with. [1] http://blog.pagefair.com/2015/adblock-users-click-more-ads/ http://blog.pagefair.com/2015/adblock-users-click-more-ads/
- Encosia 11y ago
  That is definitely interesting. I wonder if it's because they're more likely to be contextually interested in ads on a site that they would go to the effort of whitelisting, but that wouldn't actually be the case overall if they were seeing every site's ads?
  - philwelch 11y ago
    I think it's because people who use adblockers aren't used to tuning out ads.