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Comment by RodericDay | Hacker News Reader

I've often dreamed of coding up some kind of worm-virus, but instead of stealing data or demanding ransom or corrupting storage, it would just install uBlock Origin on infected computers.

Millions of infected people, with zero idea what an "ad-blocker" is, just wondering where all the YouTube ads went. And then, hopefully after a month or so of infection, companies realizing that their bottom-lines were unaffected, pulling out of digital advertising altogether. Previously-thought-of-as-invincible giant behemoths like Facebook and Google, just crumbling to dust over a short span of time.

Just a dream though.

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Personally I have grown so tired of analytics and advertising my personal idea would be to build a plugin that doesn't block anything. But instead it simply visits websites on random topics over time and clicks ads here and there. Slowly degrading the data shitty advertising companies have and ruining ROI. I am starting to do this manually and randomly clicking ads.

I honestly need to start doing that on facebook due to their new policy that every 2-3 posts need to be some "suggested" garbage

Honestly I am burned out by the constant barrage of terrible ads on most websites and social media in particular.

If I'm not mistaken this exists for Firefox. Or at least existed at some point, I guess something like that could get a lot of big players upset

Adnauseam?

https://adnauseam.io/

https://noiszy.com/

Previously, on HN... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002995

Noiszy is a browser plugin that creates meaningless web data - digital "noise."

It visits and navigates around websites, from within your browser, leaving misleading digital footprints around the internet. Noiszy only visits a list of sites that you approve, and only works when you turn it on. Run Noiszy in the background while you're working, or start Noiszy when you're not using your browser, and it sends meaningless data to these sites for as long as you let it run.

This meaningless data dilutes the significance of your "real" data, by creating a campaign of misinformation. You become more difficult for an algorithm to understand, market to, or manipulate. You can outsmart the "filter bubble".

See "track me not".

I don't think it's even necessary. The percentage of people using ad blockers keeps going up and up.

its still a minority. And even more so on mobile browsers.

You're probably right, though I don't get why. FF mobile with uBlock origin works really really well.

Me, I'm using even IE 11 lately on-site at a customer of mine. They provide a choice of Chrome and IE, but I don't feel like klicking through Google's privacy disclaimer.

sadly ff mobile share is very close to 0 percent.

I kind of suspect adblocking is doomed to die rather quickly if it ever seriously threatens the ad industry. As anti-adblock has shown even fairly trivial measures can be effective; and if you control the platform in more depth you can be a lot trickier about it, e.g. by doing minification-esque transforms to the complete dom tree.

Markets and competition should prevent this outcome. Unless we're not in a competitive market situation, in which case regulators can step in.

How would markets prevent this? The only party interested in adblocking is the consumer, who isn't the supplier nor the customer of ads. Now, if there were some real alternative to ads; but nobody has found that yet. I suppose regulators could create that alternative, but that doesn't seem politically likely for the foreseeable future.

Any browser provider that has a different business model than ads?

For example, Safari.

An ad never clicked usually doesn't get billed, but gets reported as expanding "the reach", so counterintuitively it might actually boost a campaign (CTR fell, but the reach is now pretty cheap).

Every single ad clicked every single time without an intent to act on it, however ... https://adnauseam.io

That is a piece of junk. Digital advertising can filter out silly clicks like that without a problem.

Digital advertising is absolutely effective. 2 of the biggest companies in the world are digital advertising companies, with several other giants. Don't be fooled by random examples.

You’d lose a lot more companies than that - vast swathes of content producers would go under.

Their bottom line absolutely would be affected.

This dream would be the single most destructive thing to happen to the internet

> This dream would be the single most destructive thing to happen to the internet

Hyperbole much? That statement is just rubbish.

Personally I think it would be the most constructive thing to happen to the Internet. Hell, maybe even society in general. Advertisers are scum, they ruin everything they touch, and any 'content' producers whose businesses died if this was to occur would certainly not be missed by me.

Not hyperbole. Having the majority of content producers be unable to continue operation would be a blow the Internet has never seen.

Massively destructive. Nothing would come close that’s happened before.

If no-one is willing to pay for their 'content', then it isn't worth anything anyway.

The Internet did just fine without corporate advertisers running the show and tracking everybody for years.

You mean in the early to late 90s? Because advertising has been running the show at many levels since the early 2000s.

If you don't think regressing the internet back 20 years would be massively destructive... well, I can't help you.

Content worth paying for is worth paying for the old-fashioned way. Movies are not an ad-supported industry, nor is music. We'd only lose the crap that has to trick people into paying indirectly, and good riddance.

Worth is not what is at stake here. It’s become obviously apparent that the public - even if they see value in something - prefers to get it for “free”.

Yeah, destructive in the sense of how antibiotics are destructive to germs. Please, give me more of them!

(Also, I hate the phrase "content producer". It seems to imply that content is fungible - companies thinking in such terms are precisely those who should go under.)

It implies nothing of the sort. It just recognizes a group that produce content that is consumed online.

Your biases are irrelevant

Sadly, we would just end up with more sponsored content.

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