The Rise of Adblock Shaming

I've found that asking nicely without being intrusive gets better results. At PortableApps.com, if you block ads, I have it set to show a single unobtrusive message using the same fonts, colors, and backgrounds as the rest of the site in the area where the first ad would appear. The message says "Please Help Support Us: Please consider white-listing us or making a donation so we can keep bringing you awesome apps. If you recently donated, thank you!" It's designed so that when it appears after detecting that the ad isn't shown, it doesn't make the page jump size/layout wise. In the text, 'white-listing us' links to instructions to whitelist the site and 'making a donation' links to our donations page. The detection script even cleans up the bits of background from hiding the other ads so the page still looks clean.

It helps that I have the site setup to only show a single ad above the fold for the majority of users and don't allow popovers, popunders, overlays, sound, etc.

Eventually, I'd like to add an option to display a message for donation accounts or something similar, but recurring payments and Drupal don't really play well anymore. The only supported add-on in existence is now Recurly. They're pricing was $1,200 a year but they switched it to "Ask for a Quote" (aka expensive but we don't want to say), so it's not something we'd be able to afford for the number of users.

I’ll block everything with zero sense of shame until sites realize they have to switch to non-tracking/invasive ads.

I have zero concern for whether sites think “dumb ads” is a viable business model or not. Obviously I also don’t mind if a big fraction of sites just go under because of it. If your day job is to do work for a company that is funded in any way involving modern “adtech” at any stage, I’m not very sorry for your job loss.

I don’t mind ads covering 75% of the page, ads bloating downloads etc. I mind ads that invade my privacy and ads masquerading as non-ads

To content publishers; It's not the ads I have a problem with, it's the spy-ware tracking behaviour associated with the ads you show is the reason why I'm using an "ad" blocker.

What is the value of content offered on a site that would not have existed if not for AdTech life support?

AdTech made it possible and easy revenu has become the main reason to publish online. Publish anything and generate revenue through click baiting, content farms etc.

AFAIC there’s no problem if these types of sites will go under, including sites I visit regularly like huffpost, thedailybeast and haartez - which mix some quality content with huge amount of fluff and spam.

This model does not work. I’m not going to buy a subscription in order to have adfree experience while being served sponsored content and law quality translations (haaretz has a horrible reputation in that respect) or intentionally provocative content meant to incite rather that encourage debate (again, haaretz.co.il is really shameless in that respect).

When a site whines about being adblocked, I just go to a competing site. Few sites are special snowflakes.

> It’s not that online advertising is inherently good or bad

That's definitely an opinion one is entitled to.

I see it as consumers telling the companies that they went too far. They let the ads take over too much of every page, let them be way too much in your face and let Spyware and other shit in. You simply used up your good-will and need to build it up again if you want to use this as an business model.

The only place I've ever seen ads actually work and not be too annoying is in podcasts. They are more personal there and still isn't too much in the way. I've genuinely followed up on some companies podcasts I trust has had ads for. I have no idea how to make that work on the internet though.

There are, in order of importance to me, exactly three reasons why I run an ad blocker:

1. Compromised ad networks are one of the most common ways malware is delivered these days. There's been at least one major ad network compromised a year every year for the last 5 years. I don't trust ad network providers to secure their software, which means I cannot trust any website which uses the ad networks.

2. Ads are as much about tracking as they are about promoting. A specific website may get minimal tracking information but the ad networks above the sites are following me around the internet, and the websites are enabling the ad networks by buying into a centralized tracking system. This shows a disdainful and disrespectful attitude towards my privacy. By ignoring this downside to their revenue model, websites are downstreaming their revenue problems onto random passers-by.

3. Most websites really are taking the piss with the amount of ads they show, and it makes their websites load slowly and look like poop, especially on phones.

Website owners are starting to focus on #3 and that's nice, but if 2 and 1 aren't dealt with it doesn't matter. Solve the security problem, solve the panopticon problem and solve the aesthetics problem, and then we can talk. Until then, I'm blocking all ads and no amount of shaming will make be care about the problems this causes to people relying on shitty business models.

And by the way, solve it as a group. There are billions of websites out there, I don't have enough care in me to bother maintaining a list of good-acting sites and periodically audit them to make sure they haven't relapsed. Obviously I'm just going to block all ads universally, you're a very entitled person if you think I should find enough time in the day to do otherwise. If you're running a site that meets these criteria then great, you're now a community leader. Go put pressure on your peers until enough of them change that I can feel comfortable uninstalling my addons globally.

What I find just as bad are autoplaying videos popping up somewhere at the side or sometimes even staying at the edge of the screen when you scroll. They usually don't get blocked by adblockers and are just as annoying as pop-up ads with sound.

I installed a domain block addon just for ensuring I never accidentally visit one of these sites again. There are 1000+ other sites reporting about the same news, I can live without a couple of them.

It doesn’t come off as shaming to me, but rather as begging. Like begging, but without the human element to engender empathy or pity, so you’re just left with disgust. The internet, from “please give us a buck so we can stay up!” to endless crowdfunding resembles nothing quite so much as a collection of beggars rattling their cups and with their stories written on cardboard.

If that’s your “business model” then good luck with that, but I don’t feel shame or pity. I’d like to unblock sites, but white listing only makes sense if you can trust whatever they use to serve ads. Unless they’re hostinf their own ads, I’m disinclined to trust their third party providers and trackers, even if I like and trust the site.

Based upon what our users have said from developing our own ad blocking product; most people actually aren't against ads, what they are against are:

- Slowness in web page loading, rendering and UI responsiveness due to excessive ad embeds and excessive usage of Javascript

- Losing their privacy by being tracked by ad networks and analytics code; especially across sites and across devices

- Auto-playing videos and animations which are excessive and distract from the actual content

It's likely that if the adtech industry had self-regulated earlier and shown some restraint then adblockers would never have become popular.

For those interested, our adblock product is available for iOS and macOS from https://www.magiclasso.co/

Well, i got them beat, I’m not ashamed at all.

That said, if I visit a site often, then I’ll consider unblocking. But if it’s a one-time visit, nope, gonna block.

If a site takes to something I perceive as "shaming" or pestering, its more of an incentive to leave the site - not to disable the ad/tracking blocker.

I don't disagree that content providers need ways to monetize, and that hosting and bandwidth expenses become problematic them costs exceed revenue, but its interesting that this particular business segment seems to use techniques that most other online businesses would consider toxic to _conversions_.

After all, in a time where the end user has some level of control over how their eyeballs can be monitored (however limited), any shaming of potential revenue sources seems counterintuitive.

If only some Big Bank would create a secure micropayment experiment, we could experimentally determine whether that could supplant the tracking&ads regime. (At least, for those users that despise ads ... targeted or not.)

If the potential rewards for hackers could be kept minimal, it'd not attract interest.

The NYTimes has kept their site reasonable, but I don't want to subscribe. I like the idea of paying per-item, not bulk. That lets users encourage the kind of content (and authors) they want to see more of, while generating revenue for the content that Big Papers must provide (regardless of popular interest).

WHY this topic is always off-the-radar mystifies me.

I did mention ad blocking in the essay. In general, the current economy is fundamentally based on extracting more dollars from "consumers".

One of the french IT news website I read detects adblockers and replace the space of the ad with a message saying, basically, « This space was supposed to be an ad. We respect the fact you block it, consider making a donation » (or something like that, it’s not showing on my phone right now so I guess it’s for the desktop version)

I find this very smart. Not intrusive and a bit incentive.

One of many of the comments on the article itself absolutely nails it:

"The real failure of adblock shaming is that, on the occasions where I've complied, I then rediscover why I use adblock -- and turn it back on immediately."

Is there a way to hide adblocking from the site so they don’t even know you’re using it?

I don’t mind sites that detect my adblocker and refuse to load. It’s their right to control access to their system based on user behavior. I also don’t mind not accessing their content. There are plenty of alternatives.

They are not ad blockers, they are HTML firewalls.

Recently, I encountered arguments to let websites access around one percent of your CPU resources to mine a cryptocurrency, obviously in the users consent. I think this might be a reasonable solution to the "uncreative capitalist". In my situation, I know I could easily spare one percent in exchange for no ads, but I'm sure not everyone would be in that situation.

> It is a socialist cudgel—something that forces otherwise lazy capitalists to find new and inventive ways to make their creations sustainable.

Umm, yeah...

Other than pure rent-seeking every single thing under the sun could be considered a "socialist cudgel" by this logic.

I honestly don't understand how they are trying to further their argument by using this quote in the article.