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Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

>> "I believe that advertisements are neurotoxins, and nobody has the right to poison me."

And you have no right to the content you're viewing but blocking ads on. If you really consider ads 'poison' surely boycotting sites that use ads is the solution or offering an alternative solution this is actually viable.

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When watching TV, I often switch away when the ads come. Then after a few minutes I switch back to continue watching the program. Do you think this behavior is also unacceptable? Or how do you feel about people who throw away promotional stuff found in magazines and newspapers?

On U.S. TV you can pretty much watch the first 5 minutes of the show and come back and watch the last 5 minutes without missing anything of consequence... everything you missed was flashbacks, bullshit and advertising. This describes 90% of all American TV content.

Edit: I guess the truth hurts. Thanks for the downvotes. Whatever, I stand by my observation as a foreigner having watched TV in many other countries and I can tell you from first hand experience that U.S. TV is the worst offender by a HUGE margin.

Have you ever watched American TV? This reads like someone who turned on Bravo at 2PM one time and decided all TV must be like that.

I think what they're commenting on is the sort of editing time-line encountered on such shows in the genre similar to "greatest ice-road vintage trucker sale digger catch".

These tend to be, in a 30 minute slot:

<2 minute highlight reel>

<2 minutes of original footage>

<1 minute of "coming up next">

<5 minutes of ads>

<1 minute of "previously on...">

<3 minutes of original footage>

<1 minute of "coming up next">

<5 minutes of ads>

<1 minute of "previously on...">

<3 minutes of original footage>

<1 minute of "next time on...">

<5 minutes of ads>

Which gives 8 minutes of original footage stretched over 30 minutes, with 15 minutes of ads and 7 minutes of rehashing.

This format, although now popular in other countries, is a "modern-classic" of US television.

> "greatest ice-road vintage trucker sale digger catch"

You'd better get on the horn to Discovery, I think you've got a gold mine on your hands there ;)

> a "modern-classic" of US television

If by "modern-classic" you mean "beyond irritating" :P

Plus: You nailed that edit real, kudos - though, you missed the 1 minute "> Previously on...whatever show it is" at the beginning. 8 minutes of content on a channel you pay for, plus 15 minutes of advertising... so you're basically paying more for the ads than you are for the content... there's something really really wrong with this from a moral perspective.

If you pay for a channel, you should be paying for the content on that channel, not paying to be advertised to with some content as a by-product just to get money from both ends of the donkey.

Editors are cheaper than actors.

Obligatory Mitchell and Webb Gift Shop Sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc

What's even more hilarious is when you watch these "documentaries" syndicated in Germany. Our usual ad format is one 7-minute ad break every 30 minutes instead of 2 minutes every few minutes. But you still have the artificial dramatic buildups before the missing ad slot, that you can see resolve into nothingness immediately.

Yeah, I get that, but that's a fairly small sub-genre of TV. It's a common stereotype, and I agree it's warranted because that style is obnoxious, but it's not actually a problem if you live in the US and want to watch something different.

They do the same thing with sports - cutting out action to cut to commercial breaks... and I don't mean during timeouts or whatever. They cut off soccer to go to commercial break during play! Soaps are the same... educational shows are the same. Commercials every 10 minutes. It's a joke how much advertising is done on TV you pay to watch content - not ads.

While the UK isn't exactly a model citizen in this respect, at least on the BBC which everyone (arguably) pays a TV license for, there is content wall to wall... because you pay for that. On channels you don't pay for, there is advertising, and I think this is totally fair. But why should people pay to (mostly) be advertised to and not to be delivered the content that they're paying for?

Which came first? This TV show format or the Listicle?

Either of which is beyond annoying.

Once in a while, I'll seek out a few Listicles with ad blocking off to see just what the state of the art of agressively deceptive advertisements is.

I have lived (and still do) in Canada and spent the past 18 years with access to the full suite of channels that American TV has to offer. It is largely the only TV I have access to (though not solely because I still have the internet after all). In the past couple of years I've limited my consumption to the point of avoiding it because it has become so bad.

Ok, your edit makes more sense. I agree that American TV has way too much advertising and is the worst on that front compared to many other countries. I think your original comment was downvoted because it was just a handful of stereotypes with not much relation to reality.

Also, the shows themselves are generally quite good, it's just the networks that suck. When many Americans think of TV they're thinking of HBO and Netflix and friends, so advertising isn't such a big deal.

That's a matter of interpretation. HBO and Netflix aren't TV, and while perhaps many Americans may interpret these as TV, my perspective is that they're not TV shows, but movie formats.

My main point is that with "regular" TV, if you removed all of the flashback reminders and commercials, you've basically got a 15 minute TV show stretched over the period of an hour with as much drama as can be thrown in so as to keep you sitting there in front of as many commercials as they can squeeze in during that time. It's a disgraceful waste of your time as a viewer.

One of the main purposes of Netflix is to show normal TV shows without commercials, though. And seriously, have you watched anything besides reality TV? The Office? Breaking Bad? Any decently reviewed show in the last 10 years?

Ok I know that's meant cynically, but watching is about more than determining 'who-done-it'? The journey is supposed to be enjoyable.

Which it totally would be if it didn't get interrupted for ads every 10 minutes and then have flashbacks to remind you what you were already told before the commercial break.

Yeah this recap dialog fad is going way too far.

My issue isn't really with ad-blocking. It's with people like the parent who act like it's a human rights violation but still take the content and don't offer an alternative. If you feel so strongly about it boycott companies showing you ads.

Speaking personally, I do. Internet ads are usually a sign of low-quality content, for instance they seem to have an incredible power to turn previously esteemed newspapers into clickbait factories.

The best content on the internet is ad-free.

Don't serve web pages to me if you don't want me to decide which parts are acceptable.

Stop responding with 200 OK then. Remote servers don't get to configure my user-agent, they can only control their response.

How do you feel if they respond 200 OK the first time, and then when the code detects that you are blocking ads, returns 402 the next time?

If they want to resort to that, they're entirely within their rights to do so. I have no right to demand they serve me their content. However, I have every right to make a polite request, and to download the response they send to me. They, however, have no right to tell me what to do with that response. If they want to give me a content-free response (your 402), they can do that. But no one does (the closest is sites like Forbes which use JS to block the content if you're blocking ads; personally I just don't go to Forbes any more).

This is an ad-blocking arms race for sure, but sites like the Washington Post and NYtimes have done a good job dealing with the new ad-blocking 'normal'. The point is that there _are_ things sites can do to deal with this situation. However, the status-quo is not an option.

>> "The point is that there _are_ things sites can do to deal with this situation."

I agree. But that's no excuse for someone getting on their high horse but not offering an alternative and still accessing the content.

And I respectfully disagree. I don't enjoy ads, I never click on them even if the item is something I'd use at the time, I will not click on it. I'll just go to amazon or whatever and get it there. I will never, ever click on an ad. So I'd rather not even see them.

Clicking on ads isnt necessary. A vast amount of ads are paid on an impression basis and I can guarantee that you've been affected by the advertising you've come across in your life.

This is one of the most data-driven industries on the planet and there are petabytes of data generated every day showing how well it works.

That's cool. I never said I wasn't affected. Just that I don't click on them. Ever. Like I said, I'd go to amazon or drive somewhere before I click ANY internet ad. And thus far, I have never clicked on one... willingly.

I have. Back in the days when Google had those little unobtrusive text-only ads to the right of the search results, I clicked on those once in a while, and they were actually really useful! If advertising were all like that, we wouldn't be having these arguments.

oh really? there are petabytes of data proving ads work?

Yes...

It is not up to us to solve that problem.

That's not how we usually deal with a public health hazard. Usually the government steps in and forces the company to stop the harmful activity (or even shut down), and then face criminal charges.

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