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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

>People who are blocking your ads aren't people who would have purchased a product because of your ad in the first place.

Most advertising is just brand awareness. The days of e-advertising being about clicking the ad and buying on some webstore are long over.

They are just like commercials on TV or billboards.

You don't even realize the effect they have on you.

>I've decided to no longer let ads be parked in my browser. I don't see how that is immoral.

I totally agree. But I think it would also be fine if the content providers refused me service if I didn't let the ads through.

I'm surprised more sites don't do that. I have a blocker on (and I don't even let through intrusive ads, I block it all) and I think I've only run into problems on hulu or some other video website.

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> I'm surprised more sites don't do that

I'm sure they would if they could. As far as I'm aware though, there isn't a good way to do it and still have your content indexed by google.

>They are just like commercials on TV or billboards. You don't even realize the effect they have on you.

I do. Which is why I haven't watched television/movies since I was 10 years old. Luckily I only see billboards when I'm on a freeway, which happens maybe once or twice a year at most.

I also keep an excel sheet where I blacklist companies whom I've seen advertisements from. So advertising to me has a net loss of -1 customer for life.

But I'll agree that most people don't realize how much advertisements influence their behavior. I find it disgusting and not something that should be accepted at all in any amount - but most people don't seem to mind it. (Ignoring privacy issues with online advertisements. I'm speaking more general here.)

>But I think it would also be fine if the content providers refused me service if I didn't let the ads through.

Oh, I agree. Of course - the provider will likely go out of business because that isn't a sustainable business model either - but I do agree. It also hurts their Google Ranking which is why Paywall sites let you read the article if you find it through Google.

Advertising is a broken business model. Once-upon-a-time it worked but it is breaking down. It's not the customer's job to keep watching advertisements. It's the providers job to find a better business model. Or go out of business.

I disagree that advertising itself is a broken model, but I like imagining that someone ruthlessly updates their excel spreadsheet of blacklisted companies every time they hear or see an advertisement for any company. You must only shop at flea markets!

I don't watch TV, rarely drive, don't watch movies, and use an ad blocker. It shouldn't be surprising that I see very few advertisements. To the tune of single-digits per year.

If a company is so intrusive that they still find a way to serve me an advertisement - they aren't a company I wish to support.

Billboards and bus stops are the worst offenders, but most of those I pass are advertising TV shows and movies. Which I already don't partake in.

I should be more specific: online advertising is a broken model. If it wasn't broken they wouldn't be trying to fix it. ;)

> I should be more specific: online advertising is a broken model. If it wasn't broken they wouldn't be trying to fix it. ;)

By that definition everything is broken.

If it was just brand awareness, the sites could quite easily show an image on the page, served as a static image. Same as it is in a newspaper.

From the little I know, that would bypass the ad blockers.

But then they cannot use flash, tracking cookies etc etc. So if they want to show just ads, they can already

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