This doesn't pass a cursory sniff test: Web traffic is 17% of Internet traffic, so even if we accept 25% of that is ads (I'm dubious) that would be 4.5% of traffic. That would add up to 0.3% of emissions.
As per your link, many of those other categories listed such as Video and Social media also contain as much as, if not more, advertisement load than perhaps even pure 'web traffic'.
The article was using the % of advertising resources in web pages – which came to 24% – as a proxy for the overall advertising resources across all internet traffic (which is difficult to accurately ascertain).
So, yes, this is a rough approximation... and the actual % of advertising resources on all internet traffic may be more or less.
However it is stating all digital advertising may be the cause 2% of global carbon emissions, not just due to the advertising on web pages.
I can't find a monetary breakdown of online vs. other, but by total advertising costs, I see 1.5%. So if online is not dominant I agree that they are high but close, maybe within the order of magnitude.
I was recently thinking about going back to the idea of Butter (https://butter.sonnet.io) and expanding it a little bit. Can we build a proof-of-concept of a universal ad blocker™ running on your phone? It uses AI (it's very fancy):
- model 1: use screen capture to detect ads
- model 2: once an ad is detected, hide it in a context specific way (e.g. if it's the native YT app, find and click the skip button, if it's a podcast, seek past the sponsored segment etc...)
both model 1 and model 2 gradually learn, perhaps share knowledge between users, in a manner similar to blocklists.
Perhaps in 3-5 years our devices (mobile G/CPUs and batteries) will get powerful enough to support this. Imagine the possibilities!
It's a ridiculous idea. I also think it's possible we'll see something like this in the future, because it feels like a simpler solution than dealing with the systemic issues related to advertising.
Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising.
Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment due to the restrictions that are placed on the pass-through video feed by Apple in visionOS. If these OS restrictions were removed it could be technically feasible.
hehe, came here to say something similar, i.e. it would be hard to quantify the amount of resources wasted on convincing people to buy things they don't need.
Wait until you see how much physical advertising contributes. :D
Especially if you consider branding, which I don't know why it wouldn't be in this, it is tough to compete with shenanigans like how merchandising for the losing side of stuff like the super bowl are dealt with.
samatman|2 years ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271735/internet-traffic-...
happybuy|2 years ago
The article was using the % of advertising resources in web pages – which came to 24% – as a proxy for the overall advertising resources across all internet traffic (which is difficult to accurately ascertain).
So, yes, this is a rough approximation... and the actual % of advertising resources on all internet traffic may be more or less.
However it is stating all digital advertising may be the cause 2% of global carbon emissions, not just due to the advertising on web pages.
rolldat777|2 years ago
rpastuszak|2 years ago
- model 1: use screen capture to detect ads
- model 2: once an ad is detected, hide it in a context specific way (e.g. if it's the native YT app, find and click the skip button, if it's a podcast, seek past the sponsored segment etc...)
both model 1 and model 2 gradually learn, perhaps share knowledge between users, in a manner similar to blocklists.
Perhaps in 3-5 years our devices (mobile G/CPUs and batteries) will get powerful enough to support this. Imagine the possibilities!
It's a ridiculous idea. I also think it's possible we'll see something like this in the future, because it feels like a simpler solution than dealing with the systemic issues related to advertising.
happybuy|2 years ago
Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising.
Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment due to the restrictions that are placed on the pass-through video feed by Apple in visionOS. If these OS restrictions were removed it could be technically feasible.
nomel|2 years ago
rpastuszak|2 years ago
taeric|2 years ago
Especially if you consider branding, which I don't know why it wouldn't be in this, it is tough to compete with shenanigans like how merchandising for the losing side of stuff like the super bowl are dealt with.