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Comment by J_Darnley | Hacker News Reader

Block all ads and (try to) burn the whole fetid industry to the ground.

Not an ad-lover or marketer here, but even in the pre-internet days, ads were how you found out about things you might be interested in buying, an information source, sure, to be taken with a grain of salt. But still I bet if you really trace a purchase, even if a friend told you, he most likely saw an ad or a product-based article for selling.

In some cases the ads have been put into the articles themselves, like all of the wooing over the latest Apple products release every 6 months or so. It is driven by the techno-lust for the product. It seems to be, since I have many colleagues who own two or more systems, not including phones and tablets, when one would do. Just look at some sigs in game or tech developer forums where people list their arsenal.

Yes but adverts then had a limited ability to make your life worse. Take something I found annoying then (full page magazine advert) and compare that to a full page auto play advert that sometimes even has extra adverts that are flashing down the sides. It is so hostile that I don't go to those places even with a blocker turned on because anyone who values their content that little doesn't have anything I want to see imho.

Not to mention targetted ads that try to exploit your psychological traits.

Ads have always been targeted; they're just more precise now, and fancier. Same tactics.

Think of the old 'sand-in-the-face' bodybuilding ads that were in comic books. Most comic book readers were young males going through puberty, myself included.

Disclosure: I went for the drawing school test ads, and solar ovens in 1976 ;)

I specifically block ads on clickbait news sites. It would be great if somebody maintained a blocklist that awarded good reporting.

I agree. Marco's "Peace" would have been great for this I think. He didn't want to be an arbiter of what should and shouldn't be blocked, but I'm happy to have someone decide for me and to pay them to do it. If I disagree I can go elsewhere. I wish he had not canned it because it was exactly what I wanted.

Isn't that what Adblock Plus's whitelist for non-invasive advertisers is, more or less? I understand it's not specialized to reporting, but the idea is that it won't block ads that are good citizens.

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