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Comment by kukx | Hacker News Reader

Let's be honest, why they shouldn't block adblock? The ads bring them money. And they need money to survive and, if they lucky, develop. The writers have families or plan to have ones, they need to be rewarded for their work. It may be their main or only source of income. Now, if they also provide a valuable information for you, I think that trying to trick them into giving it for free (ad free) is wrong. I think and it may controversial here, but every valuable site that lives on ads should block adblock. And don't get me wrong, I actually use adblock myself, but I'm more than happy to add exceptions for the sites I need or value.

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Just remember that "adblock" doesn't block ads - it blocks ad networks. If publications ran their own ads (like they do in print) the ads would likely a)be of much higher quality, and b) not be blocked by "adblock"

c) targeted more poorly (albeit without the privacy concerns.) d) expensive for the publisher (they have to do their own sales.)

And therefore only feasible for very large sites.

If the ads were targeted to the content on the page (remember when that was top-of-the-line tech?) rather than 3rd-party ads relevant to my assumed demographic, that'd solve for (c) nicely.

I wonder if (d) could be a business idea - broker ads just like a regular ad network, but have the site itself host/deliver the ads. CPM is out due to needing to trust the site with accurate reporting, but you could definitely do CPC this way and have the click targets be centralized for the click tracking/redirect part.

Thank you for getting my point. Clearly the traditional ad broker is going come back to have a role - built-in ad blockers will see to that. CPM is out no matter what.

Adblock can (and does) block ads that are not a part of an ad network.

If you're thinking making publishers handle ads will bring them back to the "good ol' days" of static print ads, you're mistaken. The only reason we haven't had these types of ads in the past is because the medium (print) didn't support it.

1. Most times, bad ads aren't written by the publishers at all-they are written by the advertiser. The flashing/movie/360/ugly ads are shown because they convert at a higher rate than "nice" ads.

2. Forcing publishers to run the ads would be even WORSE for for privacy since they would be considered "first-party" and have access to much more information.

3. Print publications that currently run ads don't even control 100% of the ad content. The only ones they control are the ones that look like text. Everything else is supplied by the advertiser.

1. The ad network permits the bad ad, regardless of who writes them. If the ad network didn't drop 400 domains worth of 3rd party cookies, with tracking, and give me such shite as autoplaying video, maximise on rollover and the like, I'd whitelist them. Or more likely never have blocked them in the first place.

2. They'd not be able to follow me around the net though, repeatedly showing me some car ad I accidentally clicked because it maximised on me.

3. Every print display ad I've ever run (quite a few) has been proofed by the publication prior to run. I'm not Pepsi so perhaps different rules apply?

The medium (print) did support it. Why do screens not? One word - pornography. Porn invented the banner ad and introduced the paradigm of ads that link to other sites. Clearly that is a failed paradigm. Traditional advertising will make a comeback. Digital media will look like traditional media. We will look back on the current mess as an aberration instigated by pornographers. "First-party" ads are back to the future. Explain how they could possibly be worse for privacy?

This is completely false.

99% of adblockers use rules that block anything that looks like an ad, regardless of where it comes from.

Also publishers running their own ads is an immense amount of work that requires a sales and adops team and does not guarantee any improvements in quality. The reason ad networks exist is because of the scale of the web and the challenge of trying to do direct deals between every website and advertiser.

You are completely off the mark there, buddy. Ad blockers don't use AI image recognition - and besides, that technology doesn't exist yet.

I said rules as in basic network, HTML, CSS filtering rules that are created by people, and these filters are shared by all the major adblockers.

If you ever look at these filters, you'll notice that domains aren't the only thing they block but rather things like checking the dimensions of images for standard ad banner sizes, etc. - so even if that banner was run by the same site, it would still be blocked.

Yes, that would be true. But I'm suggesting something more radical - that either a) there are no links - an ad is just an image and is served by the publication, or b) the image does have a link, but again it is to a page hosted by that publication - perhaps with a query if the visitor would like more information from the sponsor.

Ignoring the amount of work I described in selling ads directly, this still doesnt solve anything.

In a few days at most, the filters will be updated to catch these images as well.

They shouldn't block adblock because ads are untrustworthy.

Ads are hiding the content, tracking people, and even distributing malware.

Publishers need to make money, of course, but they need to find a way to do so that respects other people.

>Let's be honest, why they shouldn't block adblock?

Because if the goal is to keep the doors open, that's a terrible strategy.

The phrase "the customer is always right" doesn't mean the customer is always literally correct, it means that if you try to tell the customer they are wrong, they'll go elsewhere.

Customers don't want ads. That's clear. Telling them they can't read your stuff without reading the ads means they won't read your stuff. Mindshare is hard to build and losing it is often a killing blow.

How does that jive with the wisdom that "if you aren't paying, you are not the customer, you are the product"

That's basically why people are wising up and installing ad blockers, and why publishers are running around screaming about the end times.

Ironically, that makes you the kind of person that the advertising company is the least interested in. You're not interested in buying what they're selling, you just want to cost them money. That means your "ethical" stance isn't really sustainable in the long term. In a world where everybody blocks ads by default, but unblocks them as a form of compensation of content providers, advertisements themselves will have little to no business value. Over time, as advertisers realize they no longer getting any ROI, the funding will dry up.

I don't understand exactly how ads work, but would the people that use Adblock click on ads anyways though? Or do people make money without clicks?

Most of online advertising is paid on an impression/view basis, not clicks.

If people can't see your site, they certainly aren't going to bring anyone else to it or share it over media.

it's kind of like what I do at my local bakery/patisserie. I hate that I have to ask for something from behind the counter, and the person wants to handle my extremely dirty cash with the same fingers that they use to take out and give me what I ask for. It's disgusting.

So I just reach behind the counter (technically quite easy) and take it out, without bringing cash into the equation. It's not my fault they make it so easy for me to leave without paying them. The fact that they have a broken business model isn't my fault!

How is it up to them to say "You can take this from behind the counter, but you have to let us take and handle your cash and then give you this dirty version" when I can just take the clean version myself!

In what way is it up to them to dictate what they will and won't serve me!

If they want me to stop taking their pastries without paying, they need to make it not technically possible.

(how I feel people sound when they talk about their right to use ad blockers over the wishes of the people who the ads would be paying and whose servers are serving the content.)

Seems telling that you're getting downvotes but no replies explaining how your comparison is wrong...

thanks. nobody really has any points of difference between my analogy and their behavior.

To make it more explicit, I suppose there could be a click-through or something that sets a cookie "I-agree-to-load-ads-in-exchange-for-requesting-content-from-this-site", so that you have to start by clicking that. It's rather moot, though, as that is precisely what sites do that choose not to serve those users who use ad-block. Those users typically still try to get the content from the sites anyway. So they would likely agree to the transaction, before failing to uphold their end.

I'm waiting for someone to chime in with the "it isn't like stealing because no physical goods are taken" argument that always gets thrown out in piracy debates.

It's not wrong, but it is irrelevant.

Or it could be such a tiresomely old straw man that people see no point in typing out an explanation that he could figure out for himself, or read in one of the many previous discussions of this.

I'm generally happy to reply if I think a) the writer is willing to listen, or b) their comment might mislead others, so that a reply helps provide a balanced perspective. I don't think either is true here.

An advertisement is not a transactional fee.

I don't have to look at your ads when you're giving away free pastries.

You're objectively mistaken that an advertisement is not a transactional fee. As in, you're wrong epistemically, and if you were to get a doctoral in whatever field it belongs to you would be more correct and would no longer believe what you do today.

But out of curiosity, given your belief today, what if the TOS of the site states that you agree to look at ads in exchange for requesting content from the server (which entails reproducing it, requiring a license), or there is a click-through stating that you agree to look at ads?

In your current (wrong) opinion, do you think it's still not transactional, and people still have the right to click "Yes, I agree to look at ads in exchange for requesting the content on this site" while after doing so, blocking ads?

Curious what you think today.

Given that's not what most sites' TOS say, viewing advertisements is not a transactional agreement in 99% of applicable cases.

again it's rather nuanced. (Personally, I think it is.) I mean, it's not "transactional" if you say to a person (of either gender, and you can be of either gender) at a bar "Hey can I buy you a drink?" and they say "sure", wait for you to buy them the drink, then take it walk away without another glance at you. Where is the TOS that they agreed to share at least a second or two of your company? That said, it's still transactional, just at a different level than you're playing on, and they're being dicks if they behave that way.

But you didn't answer my hypothetical:

Do people have a right to click a button on a blank page with nothing else that says "I agree to look at ads in exchange for loading the content on this site" that sets a cookie "I-agree-to-load-ads-in-exchange-for-requesting-content-from-this-site", if, after doing so, they actually block ads?

(Or more likely, do they have the right to run a plug-in that clicks that agreement for them, while afterward blocking the ads anyway)?

This is a yes-or-no question about your world view.

There is no such agreement to click. If there were, then yes you'd be breaking an agreement. But there isn't, so it's not part of the transaction.

thanks. You could be completely correct. If this is the case then it's a legal technicality. (i.e. a single line added to the TOS or a clickthrough would change it.)

However, I think most HN contributors would not agree with you that "if there were, then yes, you'd be breaking an agreement" - I would think most HN contributors would argue that the agreement would not really be binding legally or at least morally/ethically.

I'm okay with the position you take today, as long as it's clear this is a legal technicality as opposed to some moral imperative and right to view the content on servers, that applies regardless of any agreement in place, even explicit.

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