Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

This is the place to discuss issues with the acceptable ads list like a website no longer complying with the criteria.
WinAnon

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by WinAnon »

jokerz wrote:what has destroyed the internet is the fact that so many people have been suckered in by third party ad servers that use javascript to serve ads. There lies the internets entire downfall.
^^^THIS^^^

Most static ads that are not referenced from a third party server and do not try to usurp control of the computer from the person visiting the site are NOT blocked and never were.
Most ABP users do not CARE if there are ads on a page, as long as they do not compromise their security or aggressively intrude upon their browsing experience. If these problems were not so incredibly pervasive, very few people would install ABP.

It is a style of web design that is both abusive to the user and lazy. The increasing popularity of programs like ABP merely demonstrates that people are finally figuring out one of the reasons why their browsing is so slow and their browser keeps telling them they have a virus but if they send money it can be removed.
From an infrastructure perspective, offsite 3rd party elements multiply any network congestion by the number of sites referenced, especially if the site forces sequential loading of the elements and will not display until the entire page is loaded (commonly done in order to ensure the ad content loads). In some cases, this even breaks the page if anything happens to the ad site (more common than you'd think). Even a hit counter that is run offsite has these problems. When the ad content is many times as much data as the page content itself, the difference is immense.

I am one of those people who DOES sometimes click on ad links (not often, but sometimes). I also have absolutely no problem with having relatively non-intrusive ads on my web pages (and you can easily enough keep the ads visible and still eliminate the need for page breaks).
That said, if there were no alternatives to either having 3rd party links and invasive javascript or not visiting sites that had them, I would choose to not visit those sites the vast majority of the time, only lifting the restriction in cases where there was no other source for what I was searching for, and sometimes not even then.

There is PLENTY of room for ad driven content on the internet, but there is less and less room for obnoxious 3rd party hosted ads with load times 3-10 times as long as the rest of the site combined, intrusive customer tracking, and sundry malvertising.
Put up a banner or image. Host it on your server. Leave the bells and whistles and going to the 3rd party site for those who click on the link.
A polite message reminding your visitors that these advertisers pay to keep the site running and you encourage them to look at what they have to offer also works.
In fact, it is a more compelling endorsement than music that won't stop and a close button that you have to spend 5 minutes chasing around the screen before it stays still.
yeahright

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by yeahright »

I have a website. Since the adblock boom it has went from 4 dollars a day (roughly) to 20 cents a day, and I'm getting more traffic everyday. I guess you think you are going to force all websites to work for free, good luck with that comrade, not gonna happen. So yes, adblock hurts website owners, I don't care what your circular logic has to say about it, you're just defending your right to steal content. In other news, the New York Times is about to claim bankruptcy and contributes a great deal of that to adblock. Keep on living int he fantasy world.
Guest

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by Guest »

yeahright wrote:I have a website. Since the adblock boom it has went from 4 dollars a day (roughly) to 20 cents a day, and I'm getting more traffic everyday. I guess you think you are going to force all websites to work for free, good luck with that comrade, not gonna happen. So yes, adblock hurts website owners, I don't care what your circular logic has to say about it, you're just defending your right to steal content. In other news, the New York Times is about to claim bankruptcy and contributes a great deal of that to adblock. Keep on living int he fantasy world.
Another ad pusher doesn't get it.

Visitors who have no interest in advertising are not clicking your ads, which means you don't get paid per click, or if you're on a CPM scale, lowers your pay rate in the long run when your rate drops for ineffective views.

Do you really understand why revenue is dropping? There are several factors at work.

1. Burnout. Your repeat visitors who do click ads will click less and less of the ads they have already been exposed to.
2. Habituation. The longer your repeat visitors see your site the more adept their brain becomes at tuning out the ads based on learned placement positions.
3. If you're on CPM, your ad network has cut your CPM for failing to deliver clicks and conversions.

The slim fraction of users who go through the steps required to block ads are overwhelmingly of an anti-ad persuasion. They aren't customers and never will be, no matter if some yet to be invented technical pixie dust renders ad blockers universally ineffective. People who are tired of advertising also see what it does to society and choose to refrain from participating in the advertising culture.
lewisje
Posts: 2743
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:07 pm

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by lewisje »

I know I've actually skipped over legitimate parts of site navigation because it was flashy and in a typical place where an ad would go; "banner-blindness" is a real phenomenon.
There's a buzzin' in my brain I really can't explain; I think about it before they make me go to bed.
Lain_13
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:24 pm
Location: Wonderful World, Ubuntu Linux
Contact:

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by Lain_13 »

I opened this feature request to help good guys ask people to disable adblock in a bit more effective and still absolutely not intrusive way: forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11162
(actually 'bad' guys who blocks access to a site will 'profit' from it a bit too but it is not important)
Paperclip

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by Paperclip »

I have no idea what i was looking for when i found this thread, but it was a fascinating debate. Read it all the way through and i came out on the pro adblock side. Thanks for a good read fellas :D
EchoTech
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:16 am

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by EchoTech »

^^I agree with Paperclip ^^
xanodyne
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2010 11:20 pm

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by xanodyne »

yeahright wrote:I have a website. Since the adblock boom it has went from 4 dollars a day (roughly) to 20 cents a day, and I'm getting more traffic everyday.
What boom? Only 2 or 3% of internet users block ads, so ad blocking is not responsible for the 95% drop in revenue of your site.
Lain_13
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:24 pm
Location: Wonderful World, Ubuntu Linux
Contact:

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by Lain_13 »

BTW, I know 1 site which used well known adblock detection script (which capable to detect presence of AdBlock even if it is disabled on site in the Firefox). But they stopped to use this script.
Why? Just because it didn't helped to rise their revenue from ads at all and annoyed visitors.

So, when revenue from ads are going down AdBlock is the last reason for it.
Guest Whose

adblock, an application tool for preserving privacy

Post by Guest Whose »

Lewis.. wrote: Let's keep the free ad-supported Web,
You seem to have a poor grasp of "free".

scroll down to section. on cost as privacy violations, and read the bit about purpose of interweb :
forum/viewtopic.php?t=8439#p64448

For viewers it is either free or not-free. There is no middle and it cannot be both (see also: Law of Non Contradiction)

I'm reverting the interweb into a safer place with adblocking (adblock edge,m/ karma blocker, requestpolicy, refcontrol, betterprivacy, noscript, TrackMeNot, et al; proxomitron; PFsense)


/composed in Extensive Notes Pro as scrolling in forum reply is masochism on mobile
Guest Whose

AD SERVER kabal destroying interweb and consumer trust

Post by Guest Whose »

I block 3rd party loads as others do for privacy concerns and security.

host the text-ads- or static-image-ads yourself and even hardcore adblockers will Whitelist IFF useful content AND site is frequented AND ads are not repugnant.

I block all tracking: interweb, mobile apps, whatever. What's more I volunteer time feeding hosts list projects.

I hide spam URLs from interweb search results. These sites, unfecund slapdashery, offering little else than ad spew receptacles have decreased useful results to the point one can hear the death knell for Google. Hot to sell adspace their regard for quality control is evident. Though this malarkey is easily identified userscripts unfortunately are not yet as savvy.


The AD SERVERS are destroying the interweb by enticing the other two greedy morally diminished in the quede kabal, those who advertise/stalk, and those who whore themselves to facilitate the former. Hungry for blood money obviously zero regard is given those upon whom this scheme is inflicted: naive browsing masses.

Forsooth! Villainous all. Such ought be destroyed. Would that your raving asservations likewise be squelched.

Loading 3rd party widgets-, UI, query, and utilities is SLOTH. Fetch-, cache-, serve yourself. Let cron be your friend.

I block all that. With rewriting that can live on each SURFER's workstation!

( @fanboy @arantius such would be a valuable extension. Adapt proxomitron filters :) Or encourage loopback utility usage until then, too.)

Why won't you protect the privacy of your guests?

Google, primarily an ad server, tracks via all properties throughout interweb : captcha, communication, query, JS tools, etc. "Social" Widgets are primarily tracking tools.

None are above selling this ill obtained data directly or otherwise. Cross reference againts credit cards and other flagitious service providers for further vitiation. That many volunteer tomes of personal information astonishes.


However I alone shall judge which interweb bits are acceptable
. Disabling parts of subscriptions has become irksome -- feature awaiting creation. User white/black/exception is insufficient.

(I remove unacceptable bits from extensions for myself. If I want my toaster to make omelettes... it's my toaster.)


If you want to change the behavior of those who adblock is it prudent to ignore their suggestions? or concerns?

It is business folly to ignore these. But then you people aren't conducting business are you?

How are we to deem you other than rapscallions? or your unhend arguments other than vacuous?
Anononymus

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by Anononymus »

I personally don't use Adblock Plus, but I do use NoScript.

Most ads are not evil. But malicious JavaScript, unnecessary processor use, and intrusive advertisements are. If you want your web revenue, these things will not get it to you. They encourage Ad-Blockers and discourage viewers who don't know about Ad-Blockers. Nobody thinks that forcing the client to wait 30 seconds to view a virus-infested website with some annoying sprite flying all across the article is right, except web developers who are too lazy to write their own ad-provider.

Script-Based Ad-Blocking is only hurting web developers because web developers are simply unwilling to adapt to the problem. If you don't adapt to the problem, you must reap the consequences. Consider the following code:

Code: Select all

<noscript>
<a href = "
<?php
GetNextAdLink();
?> ">
<img src = "
<?php
GetNextAdImage();
IncrementAdCounter();
?>
" /> </a>
</noscript>
This is psudocode, but you get the idea. There is unlikely to ever be an adblocker that targets image based advertisements, and the client has no way to block server side scripts and counters, nor any need to. Just because you can't use client side scripting doesn't mean that you can't use server side scripting, which means your ads can still be dynamic. If the image based ad is not intrusive enough for you, even considering animated gifs, then you are a greedy web developer who doesn't know or care about what the client wants.

Web developers who claim Ad-Blockers are evil, criminal, and contribute to web page theft, or are otherwise against Ad-Blocking because they steal revenue, are just too lazy to address the problem.

I hereby release the psudocode above into the public domain, just in case that would have been a problem for you.
Guest

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by Guest »

That approach is also ineffective. The ad images themselves can be blocked by path or by CSS attributes. Are you really going to rebuild your entire site to eliminate any distinction between ad images and content images, while at the same time hiding them within mutating CSS elements? You could waste your time trying to annoy people who block ads, but in the end they will win. Even if you win, they still aren't going to click and buy.

Advertisers and content publishers need to understand that serving ads to those who go out of their way to block them is just as futile and pointless as marketing penis enhancement pills to lesbian women.

In the end, somebody has to open up a wallet for a site to get paid. You can't force a visitor to do that, even if superior technological wizardry manages to sneak an ad through.
TheWyrm

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by TheWyrm »

The premise defending adblock as "Well it's not costing you revenue because they wouldn't have clicked an ad anyway" sounds familiar... oh yes. "It's okay for me to steal music, television and movies because I wouldn't have bought them anyway."
stuck in DUH

Re: Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.

Post by stuck in DUH »

I live in dial-up hell

in the good old days a page was 20 kb to load, now with all the css and scripts the same page is 1 mb (?)

I use ABP to aid in loading times.


the web was made for sharing information not advertising
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