I use uBlock Origin. I don't block ads - I block 3rd party requests. People that complain about ad blocking are indeed missing the mark. I'm fine with ads - really. But if you want them seen, you are going to have to serve them yourself. There is no going backwards - for reasons spelled out by others in this thread. So if your business depends on ads, then you are in the ad business. Web sites are going to have to become like magazines. When I look at a magazine, I don't see a page with the message "please go get this other publication and look at the ad on page 3". I see the ad - in the publication I am viewing. Really, stop wining and just create quality content and engage with advertisers and ad firms that will create quality ads FOR YOU that will be place IN YOUR web page. Nothing exists that I know of that can block such ads.
I just looked at the guru3d site. The content is the ad - there's no need to add more ads. You just need to monetize the "ads" you already have. You are promoting these products. Negotiate with the vendor or reseller directly to get your fair share.
That won't work for small sites that aren't going to have a million monthly views, which means you are effectively chocking of new websites, or forcing them to proxy the request through their own site, thus pointlessly driving up the cost.
I get that some people don't want to be tracked (I don't mind as long as I can selectively turn it of), but please at least be honest about what you don't like.
This is so common for the many anti-adblock texts you see these days - they all avoid to talk about the major issues here. (I say that with the background that a significant part of my income comes from ad-financed news pages.)
That is:
* Security risk through ads (malvertising, ad networks not supporting https etc.).
* Ads killing performance (70% CPU for a flash ad is not uncommon).
* Privacy (Ad vendors having mostly stated that they won't accept user wishes through DNT or similar technologies).
Privacy is a tricky one, because data is in part where the income comes from. But the other two are fixable. I want to hear from everyone complaining about ad blockers what they intend to do to make ads less of a security risk and cpu cycle burner. That would be a good start of a proper conversation about the topic. Every text that ignores these issues is usually not worth recognizing.
Those are all valid reasons, but they are not the reason I first started to block ads:
• They impose a surprisingly huge cognitive load.
Even if you (like most people nowadays) are used to them and hence “do not notice them”, that very habit of ignoring them actually takes more brain power than you’d think.
I hate ads for all the reasons you cite and because some are hugely distracting.
But small websites are not in a position to change the state of affairs, and if nothing changes and people keep blocking their ads, they're going to be dying in large numbers.
As a result, everything will be locked into app stores with even less privacy and with many restrictions on the type of content that is allowed.
The sort of answers I am looking for are the ones that do not pit small websites against users.
This strikes me as pretty similar to the usual "record labels are evil" defense for pirating music, in that it's a rationalization for something people were going to do anyway. While your points are true ones, they're not the reasons most people are using ad blockers (for instance, I am quite confident that most people have no idea about the security risks involved in simply loading an advertisement).
Additionally, visitors don't sign a contract to agree to view ads in exchange for content, content-makers don't own their visitors' eyes or attention and can't expect to just sell them off willy-nilly.
I'm very sorry for content-makers who've hitched their financial wagons to ads, I wish things were easier for you, I really do, but I'm not going to view ads, nor am I going to feel bad about it. No more so than if you had made the poor choice of relying on spam for financial support.
Look, a lot of this ad revenue was bullshit anyway. Online ads have not been very effective historically, but people were still willing to pay for them and that pumped a lot of money into any site with a lot of traffic, regardless of whether or not the ads on that site actually worked. It turns out that visitors have started blocking ads before people started figuring out how crappy the RoI on those ads actually were, but that money was likely to dry up one way or the other eventually.
There are plenty of non-obnoxious ways to do product reviews and endorsements that can still bring in revenue (that's the laziest option) but there are also a ton of excellent options out there for content-creators to gain financial support without relying on ads. It's easier than it's ever been to earn a living without ads and it's only getting easier over time. If you're a web-focused content creator in 2015 and you don't have something for sale on your site (even just "brand" merch), don't have patreon set up, and don't have plans for crowd funded projects then you're making a huge mistake and leaving a crap-ton of money on the table.
And don't forget the bandwidth and capacity usage for those on capped mobile data. I only have a 512MB/month allowance, I don't want it spent on downloading ads.
We could have an ad API where browsers could make it impossible for ads to have certain things that users don't like (for me, anything animated or which interrupts the flow) and in return ad-block software could allow ads through the new API. It could be made to work with older browsers by having a tag that ad-api browsers recognized as render this ad in this element, rather than its content and which older browsers skipped. Make the API tight enough and it won't be a CPU issue, it won't be any more a security risk than browsing any old site that is able to serve you pictures.
I doubt privacy is salvable, and I wouldn't want ads that didn't know what I was interested in to show up at all, since those universually suck.
These are all issues for the users, there are other problems with the current system:
* some ad media companies scam their clients by publishing ads on sites where kickback payments are most attractive, rather than where the users are most suitable for the client
* agencies who also design campaigns for their clients tend to use more obnoxious and more commonly blocked ad formats because they're more expensive for the client, hurting both client and publisher (more ad blockers, annoyed users)
* I am also convinced that there's plenty of click fraud out there, but it's the only of these issues I don't know firsthand / as a fact
If your business model requires changes to reality, then your business model is probably dead. [If you have lobbying power, you can extend your business model for awhile, perhaps indefinitely ala content industry and copyright.]
In other words, adapt your business model to change or die.
It's not up to "reality", us, to change to support your business model. If there is demand for whatever you produce, someone will create a "business model" to supply it. If there is not enough demand to pay for any business model then so be it, we didn't actually need/want your product after all.
It's exactly this kind of attitude that is going to lead to paywalls for virtually every type of content on the Internet. And the people that use the most heavy-handed approaches with ad-blocking are going to be the same people that are screaming "NOT MY PROBLEM" while the ship goes down.
Their business model doesn't require changes to reality. Their business model requires the end-user to accept reality for what it is: you can't get a bunch of free stuff, ad infinitum, while simultaneously blocking the only feasible revenue model for said free stuff.
> It's not up to "reality", us, to change to support your business model.
Did you pat yourself on the back while you said that, or right after?
We are not reality. The reality is, ad-blocking will be the absolute death of currency-free content. This abuse of the word reality is truly odd to me.
You seem to think every choice we make as consumers is the current reality. What you call reality, I call a house of cards.
Couldn't agree more. How to display content should be an absolute final decision on the part of the user. Adverts hijack hardware, bandwidth, screen space, electricity, and time, which belong to the user, not the advertiser or the site. Using adverts to make money is unethical, so I hope this site can change its business model successfully.
Are you writing about Napster or Ad Blockers? (Seriously; can you articulate a principled differentiation on which your argument legitimates ad blockers but properly censures Napster?)
I remember a time on the Internet before ads, when the only websites were made by geeks who were passionate about the topic. Then came the popup ads, followed by the popup blockers, banners never worked, then came contextual ads. Google made it quick and easy to profit from content and made content a commodity. Currently they are the #1 financier of web spam, and pay off ad-blockers to whitelist their ads.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Ad-supported media is not free, it's costs are simply externalised. While we, the tech-savvy, may not click ads, somebody is buying those payday loans, lose 30 lbs in a month with this weird trick, get-rich-quick scams.
I'm more than happy to see ad-financed (mostly low-quality) content go the way of the popup. I have no problem paying for quality content (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Audible, etc.). The few high quality ad-supported blogs will then be able to charge for their content, since there will be no decent alternatives. As long as ad-supported content exists though, it will be a race to the bottom.
> I have no problem paying for quality content (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Audible, etc.)
Funny that you mention that. Netflix and Hulu are not available in my country and my country is in the EU. As an american, you may not realize it, but paywalls are going to lead to a balkanization of the Internet, a process that is well on its way to being a reality.
What you are describing is a world where only big, well financed, or well known entities can survive. In order to keep the amazing internet we actually have, we need to come up with a model that can be used by small upstarts to either serve smaller markets or to give them time to figure things out and become large over time. Requiring people to publish things for free will only result in the most extreme of views. Look at any Wikipedia article that remotely touches a controversial topic - it will likely present a strongly biased message towards whatever side the maintainer of that article feels strongly about.
This reminds me of the copyright/piracy debate. The copyright industry was screaming about lost profits , but would not change it business models.
Well, it turns out, all they had to do was change their business models to something people actually wanted. Now piracy rates are falling where appropriate services are available.
Patreon (and youtube community in general) have, together with projects like gog.com, humblebundle etc. proved that people actually WANT to pay for content even if they don't have to. But only in the way they want to. Especially if that means they'll get more reader centric content, not advertiser centric.
From the site: "We review the Voyager Air 2 from Corsair, this portable storage unit allows you to connect it to USB 3.0 and WIFI. It actually comes in a 1 TB HDD model as well, which we review. This great looking device might be what you're looking for to move or stream your content from and with the latest Corsair Smartphone it might just be what the doctor ordered."
"One of the CPU cooler makers we do adore, Noctua today celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Since the introduction of the first generation NH-U12 heatsink in October 2005, Noctua's products have received more than 6000 awards and recommendations from leading international hardware websites and magazines, making them a default choice for quiet cooling enthusiasts all over the world."
That's the content.
This is not someone who has a legitimate right to complain about ad blocking.
"Blocking" ads is loaded language, and should be recognized as such. Not viewing ads can be done in a multitude of ways, but it's not like users are patching software to get there.
The web was always built to be adaptable to the end user device. The user agent was intended to act as the decision maker how to render the markup. For many years, browsers even respected the default foreground and background colors and font choices (sadly not many respect X resources anymore). CSS was designed to include an end user defined style sheet to override tiny fonts and other things that made web pages hard to read.
Not viewing animated banners isn't at all different from changing your base font, or not loading javascript. Had we chosen to call it "disabling" instead of "blocking" it would have been much more clear that this is an action that the user is and should be empowered to take. I do recognize that we're stuck with the loaded word for now, I just feel it's important not to forget that. The public discourse is dominated by media people, and their perspective is important too, but not more so than the technical one.
I am amazed that their response to adblockers is more targetted ads. My main reason for using an adblocker isn't to block ads, which don't bother me that much. It is to block tracking accross websites. Telling me that they will do more tracking in response isn't really going to change my mind...
... but it may change most minds. What bothers me about advertising is the visual noise, which amounts to a pollution of my environment. Better advertising can help reduce the need to rely on pure attention-sucking and so reduce the urge to block ads entirely.
I don't give a damn about tracking. All the doomsday scenarios that those in the anti-tracking camp imagine have not come to pass.
Well there is site-specific tracking and web tracking. I don’t mind for the former. If sites could build in-house mechanisms and work more closely with their advertisers to serve me ads specific to my interests that’s fine with me-as long as those interests correlate with the content of the site. It’s when tracking becomes pervasive to the whole damn web that becomes annoying.
Are you sure that ad blockers are the only variable in play here?
"(October 2014) we had nearly 4.5 million hits (read) on our articles. This year (October 2015) we are at 4.4 million hits...
Where a year ago we served 375~400K pageviews per day, we now register just over 200K pageviews a day."
Is pageviews the actual metric, or is ads served the metric? Given the recent discoveries in how many "ad views" were actually never presented to the reader and were just phony revenue ticks, could it not be that you are also "suffering" from an ongoing reduction in phony ad presentations as the trickery is discovered and addressed?
I block ads primarily to limit tracking and bogus traffic, not to dodge advertising per se. I heartily endorse jfoutz's suggestions here. If you continue to serve quality content, it's the more sustainable business model long-term anyway.
Years before the modern ad-network paradigm, many media sites were subscription from the outset (e.g. WSJ, mercurynews). Some later went free, using ad networks to pay the way. Now, the trend is moving back to a subscription model. Those sites that do the punitive block-ads-and-we-block-you (e.g. washingtonpost) will find that people just go elsewhere for those stories.
I turned off AdBlock on their site. A clean, attractive site immediately transformed into a supermarket sales flyer, except with animated ads. No thanks.
I don't know what the answer is. Display ads are dead or dying, though. I get a lot more revenue on my websites from Amazon affiliate links than I do from AdSense. Probably it's going to look more like paid reviews and advertising masquerading as content.
"This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website."
instead of
"This website uses cookies to track your behaviour across this and other websites to better target and retarget you with ads. Identifying and segmenting you ensures higher advertising rates. Thanks."
Still waiting for the first website with an honest cookie warning.
"Where a year ago we served 375~400K pageviews per day, we now register just over 200K pageviews a day. That's right, nearly 50% of the readers are blocking ads."
I'm not saying ad blockers had no effect on their business, but I find it extremely hard to believe 50% of their visitors discovered and started using ad blockers in the past year.
What would happen if I lazily assumed that Guru3D will follow the advertisement laws that exist in my country, and if the ad-network which they subcontract the delivery of ads breaks the law, Guru3D will then take full responsibility?
As it stand, most web users block ads and most web publisher block legal responsibility. Neither side want to take the hit when malware is spread through ads, people personal information is being illegally stored, and when laws that govern advertisement in news papers, radio, and TV is ignored on the web. Both side want all the benefits with none of the draw backs, and advertisement through websites will run closer and closer to the fate of advertisement through email.
"We understand perfectly that some of you might find ads annoying"
"Our pledge: we do not serve intrusive ads like pop-downs/pop-ups and takeovers."
From one page load of www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/guru3d-rig-of-the-month-october-2015,1.html this list excludes the dozen or so trackers and adverts that I don't have record of serving malware.
googletagservices.com (Angler, Neutrino exploit kits, to mention just the most recent)
doubleclick.net (Angler, Neutrino exploit kits, to mention just the most recent)
adnxs.com (Angler exploit kit, Flash 0-days on MSN.com)
openx.net (don't get me started on the cesspit of openx)
Main reason for ad-blockers for me: They try to distract you from reading the text you came for.
While in print ads don't (can't) do this.
Online they open to the whole page after some time, they constantly animate things to draw your attention from the text, some play sound, videos, left, right, above, below and in the text between paragraphs and capturing links.
Main reason probably because they don't really work.
I am also not a fan of annoying ads and maybe I am just a crotchety old guy, but, IMO, using an Ad Blocker and viewing content is theft.
If one is concerned with privacy, there are alternative measures such as cookie blocking options, legislation, etc.
If the ad formats are annoying then the right thing to do is to let the publisher know and work out a way to pay for the content ad-free or just stop using the site.
I also feel the same way about the bit-torrents and downloading copyrighted content. But, maybe I am the only one who feels this way.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want some of my money you need to get it from the people who charge me every month for accesing you web page: My ISP.
They are the ones making money off the fact that I want to get on the internet and access content.
Too bad there is no reliable, independent mechanism for taking some of that money and putting it in a large pool to be ditributed to content creators. The amount you get is based on how popular your site is. The ISPs know exactly how popular your site is.
(Too bad I'm late to the thread. Nobody is going to read this)
Sounds like a good idea at first, but... Who did we pay for TV content prior to cable/satellite? No one. You bought the hardware and thereafter the content was all free, supported by ads.
Cable access providers promised ad-free content, so people paid for it. Paying the access provider worked well. So well that it mostly wiped out the ad-supported over-the-air competition and left the cable cos as monopolies. Which enabled them to raise their prices and become filled with ads. While controlling what you could see and when, charging extra for some content vs other content, etc.
Making ISPs more like cable companies doesn't seem like a good idea for the consumer. And it won't make the ads go away.
Websites used to ask you to click the links because they got a fraction of a penny for your clicks. I'll send them my check for $0.001 to look at their page.
If they can't survive without advertising then let them die.
Personally I don't see the problem.
The few sites I care about that produce quality stuff (like https://lwn.net/) I pay for and that's just fine. The rest are nice to have (without ads) but if they go away it doesn't really matter - I'll just read something else or (shock, horror) nothing at all - I'm sure my life will continue even if they go under.
Can't honestly say I care a great deal.
Edit: and as I guessed they would; the downvotes now flow in. Seems like people never like to hear that one can just stop using "stuff" and do something else.
[+] [-] intrasight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|10 years ago|reply
I get that some people don't want to be tracked (I don't mind as long as I can selectively turn it of), but please at least be honest about what you don't like.
[+] [-] mozumder|10 years ago|reply
How would that help your user experience? (it might.. dunno)
[+] [-] rasz_pl|10 years ago|reply
Hey, this gpu shootout brought to you by Nvidia, and ASUS!
[+] [-] bigbugbag|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hannob|10 years ago|reply
That is:
* Security risk through ads (malvertising, ad networks not supporting https etc.).
* Ads killing performance (70% CPU for a flash ad is not uncommon).
* Privacy (Ad vendors having mostly stated that they won't accept user wishes through DNT or similar technologies).
Privacy is a tricky one, because data is in part where the income comes from. But the other two are fixable. I want to hear from everyone complaining about ad blockers what they intend to do to make ads less of a security risk and cpu cycle burner. That would be a good start of a proper conversation about the topic. Every text that ignores these issues is usually not worth recognizing.
[+] [-] teddyh|10 years ago|reply
• They impose a surprisingly huge cognitive load.
Even if you (like most people nowadays) are used to them and hence “do not notice them”, that very habit of ignoring them actually takes more brain power than you’d think.
[+] [-] fauigerzigerk|10 years ago|reply
But small websites are not in a position to change the state of affairs, and if nothing changes and people keep blocking their ads, they're going to be dying in large numbers.
As a result, everything will be locked into app stores with even less privacy and with many restrictions on the type of content that is allowed.
The sort of answers I am looking for are the ones that do not pit small websites against users.
[+] [-] Jweb_Guru|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|10 years ago|reply
I'm very sorry for content-makers who've hitched their financial wagons to ads, I wish things were easier for you, I really do, but I'm not going to view ads, nor am I going to feel bad about it. No more so than if you had made the poor choice of relying on spam for financial support.
Look, a lot of this ad revenue was bullshit anyway. Online ads have not been very effective historically, but people were still willing to pay for them and that pumped a lot of money into any site with a lot of traffic, regardless of whether or not the ads on that site actually worked. It turns out that visitors have started blocking ads before people started figuring out how crappy the RoI on those ads actually were, but that money was likely to dry up one way or the other eventually.
There are plenty of non-obnoxious ways to do product reviews and endorsements that can still bring in revenue (that's the laziest option) but there are also a ton of excellent options out there for content-creators to gain financial support without relying on ads. It's easier than it's ever been to earn a living without ads and it's only getting easier over time. If you're a web-focused content creator in 2015 and you don't have something for sale on your site (even just "brand" merch), don't have patreon set up, and don't have plans for crowd funded projects then you're making a huge mistake and leaving a crap-ton of money on the table.
[+] [-] wazoox|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|10 years ago|reply
I doubt privacy is salvable, and I wouldn't want ads that didn't know what I was interested in to show up at all, since those universually suck.
[+] [-] lazyjones|10 years ago|reply
* some ad media companies scam their clients by publishing ads on sites where kickback payments are most attractive, rather than where the users are most suitable for the client
* agencies who also design campaigns for their clients tend to use more obnoxious and more commonly blocked ad formats because they're more expensive for the client, hurting both client and publisher (more ad blockers, annoyed users)
* I am also convinced that there's plenty of click fraud out there, but it's the only of these issues I don't know firsthand / as a fact
[+] [-] njharman|10 years ago|reply
In other words, adapt your business model to change or die.
It's not up to "reality", us, to change to support your business model. If there is demand for whatever you produce, someone will create a "business model" to supply it. If there is not enough demand to pay for any business model then so be it, we didn't actually need/want your product after all.
[+] [-] jhall1468|10 years ago|reply
Their business model doesn't require changes to reality. Their business model requires the end-user to accept reality for what it is: you can't get a bunch of free stuff, ad infinitum, while simultaneously blocking the only feasible revenue model for said free stuff.
> It's not up to "reality", us, to change to support your business model.
Did you pat yourself on the back while you said that, or right after?
We are not reality. The reality is, ad-blocking will be the absolute death of currency-free content. This abuse of the word reality is truly odd to me.
You seem to think every choice we make as consumers is the current reality. What you call reality, I call a house of cards.
[+] [-] cantagi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malchow|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thaxll|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JDDunn9|10 years ago|reply
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Ad-supported media is not free, it's costs are simply externalised. While we, the tech-savvy, may not click ads, somebody is buying those payday loans, lose 30 lbs in a month with this weird trick, get-rich-quick scams.
I'm more than happy to see ad-financed (mostly low-quality) content go the way of the popup. I have no problem paying for quality content (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Audible, etc.). The few high quality ad-supported blogs will then be able to charge for their content, since there will be no decent alternatives. As long as ad-supported content exists though, it will be a race to the bottom.
[+] [-] bad_user|10 years ago|reply
Funny that you mention that. Netflix and Hulu are not available in my country and my country is in the EU. As an american, you may not realize it, but paywalls are going to lead to a balkanization of the Internet, a process that is well on its way to being a reality.
[+] [-] sologoub|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sputr|10 years ago|reply
Patreon (and youtube community in general) have, together with projects like gog.com, humblebundle etc. proved that people actually WANT to pay for content even if they don't have to. But only in the way they want to. Especially if that means they'll get more reader centric content, not advertiser centric.
[+] [-] Animats|10 years ago|reply
"One of the CPU cooler makers we do adore, Noctua today celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Since the introduction of the first generation NH-U12 heatsink in October 2005, Noctua's products have received more than 6000 awards and recommendations from leading international hardware websites and magazines, making them a default choice for quiet cooling enthusiasts all over the world."
That's the content.
This is not someone who has a legitimate right to complain about ad blocking.
[+] [-] xorcist|10 years ago|reply
The web was always built to be adaptable to the end user device. The user agent was intended to act as the decision maker how to render the markup. For many years, browsers even respected the default foreground and background colors and font choices (sadly not many respect X resources anymore). CSS was designed to include an end user defined style sheet to override tiny fonts and other things that made web pages hard to read.
Not viewing animated banners isn't at all different from changing your base font, or not loading javascript. Had we chosen to call it "disabling" instead of "blocking" it would have been much more clear that this is an action that the user is and should be empowered to take. I do recognize that we're stuck with the loaded word for now, I just feel it's important not to forget that. The public discourse is dominated by media people, and their perspective is important too, but not more so than the technical one.
[+] [-] adminprof|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] junto|10 years ago|reply
I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads, I just can't accept the intrusive tracking, including being retargeted.
[+] [-] rewqfdsa|10 years ago|reply
I don't give a damn about tracking. All the doomsday scenarios that those in the anti-tracking camp imagine have not come to pass.
[+] [-] elorant|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doguozkan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrScump|10 years ago|reply
"(October 2014) we had nearly 4.5 million hits (read) on our articles. This year (October 2015) we are at 4.4 million hits... Where a year ago we served 375~400K pageviews per day, we now register just over 200K pageviews a day."
Is pageviews the actual metric, or is ads served the metric? Given the recent discoveries in how many "ad views" were actually never presented to the reader and were just phony revenue ticks, could it not be that you are also "suffering" from an ongoing reduction in phony ad presentations as the trickery is discovered and addressed?
I block ads primarily to limit tracking and bogus traffic, not to dodge advertising per se. I heartily endorse jfoutz's suggestions here. If you continue to serve quality content, it's the more sustainable business model long-term anyway.
Years before the modern ad-network paradigm, many media sites were subscription from the outset (e.g. WSJ, mercurynews). Some later went free, using ad networks to pay the way. Now, the trend is moving back to a subscription model. Those sites that do the punitive block-ads-and-we-block-you (e.g. washingtonpost) will find that people just go elsewhere for those stories.
[+] [-] rasz_pl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] douche|10 years ago|reply
I don't know what the answer is. Display ads are dead or dying, though. I get a lot more revenue on my websites from Amazon affiliate links than I do from AdSense. Probably it's going to look more like paid reviews and advertising masquerading as content.
[+] [-] futbol|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BogusIKnow|10 years ago|reply
"This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website."
instead of
"This website uses cookies to track your behaviour across this and other websites to better target and retarget you with ads. Identifying and segmenting you ensures higher advertising rates. Thanks."
Still waiting for the first website with an honest cookie warning.
[+] [-] tlrobinson|10 years ago|reply
I'm not saying ad blockers had no effect on their business, but I find it extremely hard to believe 50% of their visitors discovered and started using ad blockers in the past year.
[+] [-] belorn|10 years ago|reply
As it stand, most web users block ads and most web publisher block legal responsibility. Neither side want to take the hit when malware is spread through ads, people personal information is being illegally stored, and when laws that govern advertisement in news papers, radio, and TV is ignored on the web. Both side want all the benefits with none of the draw backs, and advertisement through websites will run closer and closer to the fate of advertisement through email.
[+] [-] zamalek|10 years ago|reply
> Ghostery
These guys are complaining that users don't want to be tracked. I honestly can't take a single word in the entire article seriously.
[+] [-] proactivesvcs|10 years ago|reply
"We understand perfectly that some of you might find ads annoying" "Our pledge: we do not serve intrusive ads like pop-downs/pop-ups and takeovers."
From one page load of www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/guru3d-rig-of-the-month-october-2015,1.html this list excludes the dozen or so trackers and adverts that I don't have record of serving malware.
googletagservices.com (Angler, Neutrino exploit kits, to mention just the most recent)
doubleclick.net (Angler, Neutrino exploit kits, to mention just the most recent)
adnxs.com (Angler exploit kit, Flash 0-days on MSN.com)
openx.net (don't get me started on the cesspit of openx)
serving-sys.com
[+] [-] BogusIKnow|10 years ago|reply
While in print ads don't (can't) do this.
Online they open to the whole page after some time, they constantly animate things to draw your attention from the text, some play sound, videos, left, right, above, below and in the text between paragraphs and capturing links.
Main reason probably because they don't really work.
[+] [-] fromMars|10 years ago|reply
If one is concerned with privacy, there are alternative measures such as cookie blocking options, legislation, etc.
If the ad formats are annoying then the right thing to do is to let the publisher know and work out a way to pay for the content ad-free or just stop using the site.
I also feel the same way about the bit-torrents and downloading copyrighted content. But, maybe I am the only one who feels this way.
[+] [-] Yuioup|10 years ago|reply
They are the ones making money off the fact that I want to get on the internet and access content.
Too bad there is no reliable, independent mechanism for taking some of that money and putting it in a large pool to be ditributed to content creators. The amount you get is based on how popular your site is. The ISPs know exactly how popular your site is.
(Too bad I'm late to the thread. Nobody is going to read this)
[+] [-] Falkon1313|10 years ago|reply
Cable access providers promised ad-free content, so people paid for it. Paying the access provider worked well. So well that it mostly wiped out the ad-supported over-the-air competition and left the cable cos as monopolies. Which enabled them to raise their prices and become filled with ads. While controlling what you could see and when, charging extra for some content vs other content, etc.
Making ISPs more like cable companies doesn't seem like a good idea for the consumer. And it won't make the ads go away.
[+] [-] Dolores12|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperbovine|10 years ago|reply
Just charge money. Have we all forgotten how commerce worked for ~5000 years before the ad-supported model came along?
[+] [-] raddad|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjuhl|10 years ago|reply
Edit: and as I guessed they would; the downvotes now flow in. Seems like people never like to hear that one can just stop using "stuff" and do something else.