Adblockers: The Only Way Out
mondaynote.com
mondaynote.com
If your business model relies on technical tricks whose ethics are in a very dark-grey area, you do not get to play the ethics card when I use a technical trick to protect myself from you.
Yes there are "nice" ads and content creators that need to monetize, and it's sad that they get caught in the crossfire. But I'm not willing to sacrifice my security and privacy for the benefit of those. It's like saying "yeah uncle Bob gets drunk and beats us but his buddy is a really nice guy just trying to get by". Sorry Bob, you're not welcome in my home.
Now, to clarify, I'm not expecting anyone to stop using ad-blockers. That's stupid, there are very real reasons why they are useful, but acting like there's no ethical problem with the current situation, IMO, is ridiculous. The first step to fixing the problem in a sustainable way is acknowledging the problem in it's entirety, and that includes our part. Otherwise whichever side convinces enough politicians first gets a temporary advantage, until it sways the other way, or we finally get better legislation. Why not aim for a good compromise from the beginning, so everyone wins?
> It's like saying "yeah uncle Bob gets drunk and beats us but his buddy is a really nice guy just trying to get by". Sorry Bob, you're not welcome in my home.
Yet you keep using his summer home for vacation. Perhaps cutting off contact would send a clearer signal?
And that argument is completely and utterly bogus. When you broadcast your radio or TV signal over the airwaves, I can watch or listen just to the content and switch it off, mute it, fast forward it, etc. during the ads. I have no obligation to watch or listen to them and I don't.
It's no different when you put a publicly accessible file on an open server. There are no restrictions on anyone downloading that file and not downloading other unrelated files just so you get paid. If you don't want users doing that, find a different way to get paid.
>Does the MPAA doing shitty things mean we should steal movies from them, or that we should boycott them? How is viewing content without seeing ads any different? Two wrongs don't make a right.
That's a complete non-sequitir. None of this is the same as pirating goods from the RIAA and MPAA. Those are not publicly available pieces of content that anyone can access. You have to break encryption and other similar anti-circumvention tools to watch them without paying.
He said it was unethical, not impossible. Likewise if there is a public fruit stand on the side of the road with no one around, and the owners expect people to take fruit and leave money - sure theres no restrictions to stop you from stealing all the food and the money, but if you do, just because there are no restrictions doesn't mean its not unethical.
Much like how the "first-sale doctrine" limits a publisher's rights over a work after a copy first changes hands, you do not get to dictate how the client renders your HTML or if they choose to run your javascript after you've voluntarily handed the files over to them in the HTTP request.
If your business suffers because of this, well, that's what happens to business models based on magical thinking and a misunderstanding of copyright.
I simply said it would be nice for website owners to express their opinion on ad-blocking (some are pro, some are anti), and then users could choose to use that information.
If this gets into a war, it won't be hard for website authors to start sending you webpages where you have to call the javascript for the content (with ads) to appear -- some websites already do. I would suspect however those who write ad blockers will be more motivated to block ads, than websites will be to write ad-blocker-blocers.
Is this a serious question?
Yes, sites should block users that use ad-block if they care, but the ecosystem isn't to the point that something like that is tenable for most sites. I'm not fighting against ad-blockers here, I'm fighting against the entitlement that I see exhibited. I think it's counter-productive.
It's very different, because the MPAA and RIAA do not (and do not claim to) give their content away for free. You can't (claim to) give things away for free and then argue that it was unethical that people didn't quid-pro-quo somehow. To clarify something in my original comment that some people further down the comment chain seem to be misunderstanding, when I said
> If your business model relies on technical tricks whose ethics are in a very dark-grey area, you do not get to play the ethics card when I use a technical trick to protect myself from you.
I am not only referring to the advertising industry. If you are a content publisher and you use any of the vast majority of ad networks to meet your bottom line, then your business model relies on technical tricks whose ethics are in a very dark grey area, and I have no qualms using technical tricks to protect myself from you or those you chose to trust with displaying content on your website.
I respect the opinions of content creators who believe that ad-blockers are unethical, and if you run a site that says "if you use an ad blocker please do not use this site" then I respect that opinion too and will stop using your site. But if you run a website on which you claim to offer your content for free while surreptitiously violating (or allowing others to violate) my security and privacy (especially without even warning me first), then I have no qualms consuming your content for the asking price and not viewing your ads. I have yet to see an argument against this point of view that has any merit, but I am of course willing to change my opinion if and when I do.
What we have here is an unspoken agreement about a transaction taking place, and both sides are interpreting it in their best interests without confirming that's okay for the other side. Everyone's an asshole in this scenario, which I think fairly accurately describes reality.
To put this in relatable terms, it's like walking down a country road and coming upon a crate of apples. While they don't say they are free, they look kind of free, and you're hungry. You take one, and all of a sudden a guy jumps out from behind a tree and demands that you owe him a favor and some info about yourself for eating his apples. He's a scumbag, it's obvious, for trying to engineer a scenario where he can solicit business from people that might otherwise pass him by, but the passerby that partakes without confirming that it's actually free isn't without fault either.
Now, we see that some people are pretty good at just ignoring the shop keeper, and they keep reaping the benefits of free apples. Sure, the owner of the apples is an asshole, but the other people are still stealing his apples, and regardless of how much an asshole he is, that's not okay. At this point, both parties are acting in bad faith. Unfortunately, the problem is muddied by the facts that people decided long ago, primarily due to these shady guys and small favors, that apples just aren't worth paying money for anymore, and rarely the guys that own the apples even sell your info and/or favors to really shady people, so it's often safer to ignore them and give them nothing.
P.S. Yes, this conflates the content creator and the ad network, but that's not really the point of this.
This, I think, is where you and I disagree: the web was founded on the free exchange of information, where when you put something online, it's free (and then later, it's free unless you ask money for it via paywall etc). So it's more like deciding that an unspoken transaction is taking place and it should benefit you in some way if I pick up a sofa that you left on the curb. Yes I am benefiting from this furniture, and yes it's something I could have paid for elsewhere and you could have chosen to sell. And if I see you while I'm picking it up I may thank you. But that's as far as my obligation will go, and if you try telling me about how unethical i'm being by cleaning the couch before I use it (and in so doing throwing away the flyers you've stuffed under the cushions without reading them) then I will think you're being a little ridiculous.
I think I'm pulling the metaphor a little far here and I apologize for that, but I stand firm on the opinion that if you put a resource up on the internet, and you do not claim otherwise, then I have no obligation to you for consuming it. And the other thing is I have never seen a site that asks me not to use it if I block ads, a request I fully respect. Only ones that whine about how I should be less unethical and allow unknown third parties to violate my privacy and security and themselves make the lions' share of the profits so that the website can scrabble a few dimes themselves, a request that I do not respect in the least.
That is definitely where we disagree. The web is a medium. Ascribing freedom to it is a fallacy, regardless of how it was first developed and used. It would not be where it is today without commercial interest at every level, and to me it's obvious that when a business is on the web, their purpose is not to give you free stuff, it's to make money[1]. I think to assume otherwise it to delude oneself. In other words, the internet doesn't have an opinion on whether it should be used for free things or not.
> And the other thing is I have never seen a site that asks me not to use it if I block ads, a request I fully respect.
Depending on how you interpret the message, I have. I've seen messages where the ads would be saying "We support this site with advertising, without thatrevenue we can't continue. Please don't block our ads." You can choose to either interpret that as them whining, or you can choose to interpret it as them expressing their wishes that ads be viewed on the site, and to use it with an ad blocker is against their wishes.
1: For that matter, nothing is free, ever. There is always an intended purpose, and an intended gain for the exchange. That gain may not be directly from the other party, and may not be financially based. For example, the gain could be the opinion of the other party or society in general (social capital, fame), a long play on later financial gain (establishing relationships), or the feeling of doing something useful for society or specific others (personal esteem), etc. If you can't determine why something is being offered, then you should be wary.
I go to a site. That site hands me over to a completely different network. My target site's owner has no idea what's running on that other network.
My target site exposed me to danger.
No thank you.
In other words, blocking ads on a large scale causes a readjustment that is not necessarily bad for the overall ecosystem since most of that money is actively winning a zero sum game against better content with less (desperate) backing.
The ads I see for New Relic, PagerDuty, PyCharm, etc. are relevant to me but they are not actionable. They would be relevant and actionable if I am consciously looking for these products as part of a report that will kick-start the procurement process.
All the books I've bought in the last year were based on recommendations from blogs and podcasts.
We're at peak ads on the internet.
I feel no guilt, personally. I began using an ad blocker after receiving a nasty bit of Flash based malware via an ad served by one of the major ad networks (I can't recall who, but I want to say it was via MSN at the time). That was it for me. The moment viewing ads on otherwise-safe sites became a threat, I started blocking without guilt. Because it was an advertising network, it wasn't just as simple as saying "I'll block ads on site xyz"
Let's hope that sort of content dies.
I mean:
10 Reasons I Hope That Kind of Content Dies -- #6 Will Blow Your Mind!!
A concert review by someone I don't care about, a theater review by someone I don't care about, a probably paid restaurant review by someone I don't care about.
They do a heavy business in reselling a Reuters feed, corporate press releases, and government press releases, but I don't need any of that, or I get it from the source.
Its quite possible "news" as a filler product is obsolete.
If someone's business model relies on exploiting security flaws on the client, they shouldn't expect to trade on that forever.
I don't run an ad-blocker and I don't run into too many problems. I avoid sites that annoy me with ads, it's pretty simple. I actually have the reverse outlook that you have. I feel like most people over-exagerrate the ad problem to more easily justify running an ad-blocker.
I think ads are the clearest sign that our society has generated a lot of make-work to keep people busy. Depressing.
advertisers sending promotions trough iphone exploits
That's the ad industry's fantasy - that they can come up with "acceptable ad formats" which will be allowed through ad blockers. This comes from the AdBlock sellout - you can now pay to get through AdBlock. But AdBlock isn't the only game in town.
Ad servers can fight back. HTTP 2 will probably be used as a tool to fight ad blocking. When it all comes in through one pipe, it's harder to identify ads. We'll probably see ad insertion at the CDN level, with the ad stream integrated with the content stream into one HTTP 2 bundle. Cloudflare may already be doing this.[1]
Then we'll need better ad blockers. Current ad blockers are rather dumb. They mostly use some huge file of regular expressions to recognize ads. Those files are maintained by humans, and they're always a behind changes in ad formats. Systems that automatically recognize ads, regardless of format, are needed. Ad blockers of the future must work more like machine-learning spam filters.
No, no it won't. People have been predicting micropayment for decades now. To call the attempts "failures" would be kind. Patronage (like Patreon, for instance) and bundling are much better bets.
(The OTHER common thread to all those examples is that none of those actually make enough money to pay for the absolute cost of the content they offer -- with the exception of some Netflix originals and Spotify-exclusive tracks and what have you, the vast majority of the content on those subscription services is licensed to those platforms at some MARGINAL cost, and the cost of actually making that content has already been paid for by theatrical showings, TV rights fees, album sales, etc. They're not really sustainable models as they exist right now once theaters, TV channels and album sales start to die out, which is where the sort of content that is being talked about here already is at -- content that needs to cover the ABSOLUTE cost of creation through online revenues.)
I don't know anyone who cares for advertising or for the relevant business models one jot. Considering it 'unethical' to block ads is simply laughable. I don't want them to exist at all!
When I browse the web I don't want random blobs of capitalism shoved down my throat at every opportunity. I don't want an SUV. I don't even want to know such a thing exists.
The 'paying for content' angle is so far off the mark it makes me feel as if I have some sort of mental illness. I can't even think of the words to describe how the statement isn't even 'wrong', it's just nonsense.
Allowing Mega Big Corp to bombard my brain so that an artist can eat is a broken paradigm. What gives them the right? Lots of people like Mega Big Corp, so I should be battered into submission until I fall in line too? They have 'money'? I don't want 'money' on my Internet. It wasn't like this, before.
I don't care about how 'obtrusive' your advertising is. I don't care what colour it is, whether it's animated, what font you use. I don't want it. Just like when I take a walk in the forest I don't want cars.
I don't care how 'unethical' you feel me blocking adverts is, either. Use your men with guns; and forcibly lock me in a box. Prevent me from doing it. Then we'll see who's 'unethical'.
edit: WRT 'not going to the sites'; it's just not a realistic option, is it? The equivalent for TV would be not watching it. The equivalent for living in a city (ex. London bus ads, tube ads, billboards on roads, etc) would be not living in a city.
If you don't want to consume advertising there is no choice left. It's either block ads, try to cognitively block ads, or simply don't interact with society/culture any more. (I actually do try to limit myself to ad-free sites, not out of an ethical compulsion, but because often they're just better in general; e.g. HN, Wikipedia, forums/mailing lists, etc)
I suspect Facebook already does something similar via automating the hundreds of millions of dead accounts in their system. My suspicions were triggered because a decade ago when FB was still fresh, I created a page for my dog (now passed away), and very recently, it shared a "funny" video. So either my dog is using facebook from beyond the grave, or fb has automated his account.
The main feed already acts like this, only the news stories are those false sensationalist articles being shared by people that believe them.
I mean all that mind bogglingly dark patterny/cynical gameplay we engage in everytime we watch one. And there's also all the negative, misery inducing, pressure when you realise, even if you sold the house and spent it all on plastic surgery you wouldn't be anywhere near as attractive or thin as the size zero model they've just tried to use to sell you the gadget you probably don't need, that you probably can't afford that was likely made by some "exploited" person from resources that probably aren't sustainable and then shipped halfway round the world. And then you go and buy it anyway and hate yourself for being gullible and buying something you probably can't afford... just so you can support some guy who's just doing his job but secretly hates himself for engaging in a zero-sum game with the rest of mankind and persuading you to buy something you... every time he sits down at his desk so he can buy his kids new ipads for christmas when they'd arguably be better off without anyway [3].
Another nash equilibrium in a world crying out for socially optimal solutions [4] or just an another inevitable inefficiency of capitalism [5].
I mean what ever happened to the Just In Time philosophy. We've ran with it on the supply side so stuff is cheaper than it should be, but every day i get bombarded by tens of emails from companies investing a lot of effort in trying to kiddology me into buying stuff which i thankfully just filter away (as i do with the rest of it - ad-blockers, don't watch live tv or listen to radio stations with ads, don't buy into the whole sky pay for stuff and then also have to watch ads). It's almost like a stupid tax.
At the end of the day I'm just not going to buy your <unnecessary> thing so stop wasting my time/sanity/electricity/bandwidth and yours. It's not as though, for example, if i want to buy a new tent (which so far i've done about every 5 years) or do a canvas (probably twice a year) i can't just wait ten minutes for the next millets sale or photobox offer (i mean when does photobox not have a sale on for something they just keep increasing the base price of anyway). And anyway i'd probably be better going somewhere that had spent slightly less on their kiddology so their quality sucked less.
I entirely get why people do it, the "good" of the website/service/... i provide hopefully outweighs the "evil" of the mechanisms i go to try and support it, but if you didn't "need" the money, would anyone go anywhere near an ad-broker?
I can't help but think if we factored money out of this whole equation, this whole pyramid of snafu would collapse and we can move onto a slightly more healthy, enlightened society? Is this the best we can do? Would basic income help [6]? Or do i have to wait for likely societal collapse to a lower energy level to render this whole thing moot (see Tainter)?
</more ranty than i intended>
[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/litost/15113770968/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjCrL40JIM
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGab38pKscw
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILgxeNBK_8
[5] https://libcom.org/library/inefficiency-capitalism-brian-oli...
With sufficient mental training, any person can add an ad blocker to their own brain. The mind of such a person instantly disengages the instant it detects an unsolicited sales pitch.
Having conceived the end goal, we now imagine such tools as may be helpful to achieve it. Perhaps it is useful to build a tool that blocks the most intrusive and annoying advertisement on Earth from the senses of the human whose internal ad-blocker is not yet perfected. Expand the tool such that progressively less annoying ads are blocked for those with progressively less perfect anti-ad discipline. Continue until the tool allows one with no training whatsoever to have the same ad-free existence as the adblock monk.
Once the person has chosen to not attend to unwanted ads, there is no countermeasure any advertiser can take. The human is the ultimate arbiter over the thoughts that enter its own brain. Whatever cannot be blocked can be ignored. It is the desire to ignore that leads to the blocking.
The traditional method to alter the desires of the consumer--advertising--is not likely to affect a desire that specifically targets advertising. You can't get people to pay attention to ads again by advertising for the practice of advertising.
All you can do is stop the bleeding, by immediately curtailing all practices that led people to start tuning out ads in the first place.
At this point, if you want me to attend to ads, you will have to pay me, directly. I will open one end of a channel that leads to me. If the cash stops coming through, I'll close it. If the cash that comes through is insufficient to compensate for the peace of mind I would otherwise have by closing it, I'll close it. I will then take that cash, and spend it on whatever it is that I would like to be ad-supported. Maybe I will spend a little on something that was advertised. Maybe not.
An advertiser might ask, "what guarantee do we have that you will actually pay attention to the advertising we push through that channel?" And my answer is that no advertiser ever had any such guarantee in the entire history of mankind. Even my own spouse peppers a seemingly unending stream of words with frequent "are you listening?" pings. If my own spouse cannot trust that I am paying attention at all times, no advertiser stands a chance. And as I find those pings to be annoying, anyone else that asks the same thing is likely to be told, "I was, but now I no longer will be."
Advertisers are just going to have to accept that most of what they do is a waste of money and effort. They are broadcasting seeds with a low germination rate, with no way to test beforehand which ones will ever sprout. If you don't throw them all out there, all the sterile seeds along with the fertile, nothing will ever grow.
+1000 This is the same conclusion that I've reached. Advertisers must pay us. There is no way that the free-ride that advertisers have been getting is going to continue. We control what enters our minds, not advertising companies. If they want to pitch products or services to us then they can pay for "qualified leads" : those people who explicitly allow them to advertise by first being paid.
We have the means to enable this (even somewhat anonymously) with bitcoin. Once the advertisers get over the initial disconnect with their current system, they (at least the enlightened ones) will understand that this helps them too. Instead of desperately hoping that someone out of millions will carefully consider their message, they can get a much higher response by advertising to the people who are more likely to be receptive.
I go out of my way to stop purchasing products whose advertisements I see too often, or who use emotional advertising that has nothing to do with their product. One example: I stopped buying Dove products the very first time I saw one of their "real beauty" campaign ads. Bloody hell, you're only selling soap. What on Earth makes advertising people think that stroking the egos of people with body image issues would work? Perhaps it works on a lot of people, but I sure as hell am not one of them.
I don't think any such data exists, particularly among those who have consciously decided to ignore the ads.
Company: Why should we pay you if people are ignoring the ads?
Admen: Because they work *better* if you aren't paying attention.
Company: Really?
Admen: Absolutely!
Company: We're not sure about that...
Admen: Ladies and gentlemen, mister Kevin Nealon.
Mr. Subliminal: I get that you have concerns
(keep paying us)
about the effectiveness of subliminal advertising,
(it really works)
but you should take a look at this chart
(totally legit)
showing what appears to be ad budget on the x axis
(sex axis)
and product sales on the y axis
(why not buy more ads?).
As you can see,
(really just a model's ass)
more ads mean more sales. So in conclusion,
(buy more ads)
your company should definitely buy more ads from us.
Company: We'd like to increase our advertising budget.