What if there were no ad blockers?
rlvision.com
rlvision.com
Their continued existence and unhindered operation should be legally protected.
Edit: For people who might not be aware, ADHD could be seen as an executive function disorder.
It's impossible on a biochemical or neurological level for me to ignore irrelevancies such as ads. Best case I get distracted (that thing I was doing... yeah not gonna happen today), worst case even make a purchase (also known as the ADHD tax, life's not cheap for us invalids).
The medication is alright, but requires supplementation by things such as strict time schedules, alarms and reminders for all the things, and... ad blockers.
I love that idea
Imagine a world where 93% of people have the Hunter or Edison Gene, no one would have flashy things on webpages, ads or otherwise. That would also mean more than 10 times as many people with amazing creativity and insight and many fewer people who are willing to do the same thing over and over and over and over like 93% of the people in this world. We likely would have found ways to eliminate drudgery for most tasks. Perhaps we would live in a happier world where people were more fulfilled.
@krono, living with the Hunter Gene in a world built for people with the Farmer Gene does not mean you have a problem, dysfunction, affliction, malady, sickness, infirmity, disability, defect, or disorder but does mean you must adapt to a world built for others.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Celebrate and build on your strengths, mitigate your weaknesses as we all should.
Edison Genes [0]
Although ADHD is often described by the problems it presents, several recent studies (see here, here, and here) have reaffirmed other potential advantages linked to the ADHD diagnosis, namely — the ability to think more creatively, and entrepreneurial orientation (EO).
ADHD has been linked to three aspects of creative cognition, namely: divergent thinking, conceptual expansion, and overcoming existing knowledge constraints.
[0] https://medium.com/welded-thoughts/adhd-the-return-of-the-hu...
These strengths do exist, but are completely wiped off the table and then some by the unimaginable negative impact that these brain function incompatibilities have on daily life.
And then on top of that Google announces they're going to sabotage your accessible toilets and steal your crutches.
< https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/neurodiversity >
Neurodiversity refers to the idea that neurological differences, such as those seen in autism or ADHD, reflect normal variations in brain development. Neurodiversity is often contrasted with the “medical model,” which views conditions like autism or ADHD as disorders to prevent, treat, or cure. There has been a push to move away from this idea of pathology and more toward a more nuanced perspective with variations of what is “normal.”
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/C...
It's not like I'm looking away from my monitor every 5 seconds and then completely forget where I am or what I was doing. Understanding the content is also not an issue.
The real problem is the insidiousness of the advertisements themselves.
However there are many sites which would be on my no-visit list due to ads, honestly, google probably being one of them. I rarely see google results without ads, and when I do I am shocked by how hard they are to avoid. Even that small dark patern of having an icon, and replacing it with "ad" is so fucking evil.
Long story short, ads are a plague. I hope everyone installs adblockers and the entire ad industry collapses in favor of something hopefully a lot better.
I heard in a city in south america ALL advertisements outside were banned. You were permitted a name + logo for your business, but that's it. Turns out advertising got much more interesting and opt-in rather than forced upon you.
There are also fairly strict guidelines for the size of the name + logo for your business throughout the city, as well as even stricter guidelines within the a historic district in the downtown area.
I hate ad tracking and if I cannot access a service then too bad.
Joke apart, advertisers lost the benefit of the doubt long ago. They have shown unethical behavior, and they're bad stewards of the information they collect surreptitiously. The internet would be a better place without the overbearing influence of the modern advertising industry.
TV stations should not allow that, or we should be able to counter it with technology.
Having said that, less of an issue now with streaming.
I don't normally really like the YouTube channel Cheddar, but they recently had a video on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmydvmxWUsE
Apparently its FCC regulation (I'm not in the US), and the FCC cannot create legislation for streaming services so they are currently free to do as they wish.
I don't care if ads would be banned on the internet. Companies (sites) that get their revenue only from visitors would not be cost effective and disappear. Huge improvement if you ask me. And companies where you order books or buy other things would remain because they would get money from the visitors.
I remember the Internet from the 90s and 00s and it was a great place.
"Take my money and turn off the ads!"
"We don't want your money, we want you to watch ads."
There's nothing I need to watch that badly, thanks. But thanks to COVID, I haven't been in a hotel room for a while, so thanks for reminding me how hideous ad-supported television is.
Back in my day things were better is basically never true.
This isn't meant to just be some empty counter, as I totally agree with what you're saying, and I think uBlock's existence is only because the situation kept escalating to the point that we were gifted with complete control over the browser (until Apple and Google took it away...least we still have Firefox for now).
My point here is that we've already been through a few arms races with advertisers, and it will continue to be adjusted moving forward. A lot of research has gone into effectiveness of advertising and the best returns on investment for different advertising methods with the current modern web, and despite native advertising being a thing, we still see a huge industry dedicated to the spam-ad model. Youtubers seem to most have moved to Patreon/sponsored videos, but Youtube has metrics for advertisers to note if someone watched the seconds with the advertisement or not as I understand it†, so even this form of native advertising seems to not be so popular with advertisers.
In your face pop-ups, attention grabbing videos/banners, and polluted search results seem to be the ones that businesses flock to and that ad agencies sell the best; I seem to recall some article on Facebook ads that the return on investment was pretty bad in most cases.
But for all the above, I'm not sure it matters for the end user as there's still only one route to the end user, and it's the browser or apps, and at least on the desktop, there are still browsers you can use to control your online browsing, and if they stop serving their purpose, they can be forked.
edit: forgot my footnote.
† I'm not an expert on this but the youtuber's I do watch usually half-joke about whether or not people skip the ad sections of the vid, so I'm making a guess there's some ability to track this.
I'd return to more niche enthusiast sites, where the top handful of uses chip in a few dollars a year to keep the VPS on.
Change can be so distasteful.
You might ask: is it that someone who doesn't block ads just doesn't care about them, and so they don't affect his productivity one way or the other, while someone who does care about ads might be more inclined to work more rather than idly browse? I have witnessed many people start using ad blockers and not become less productive. I have witnessed people move to work environments where they could not install ad blockers, and they did not become more productive or browse the web at work less. So, my conclusion is "no"!
Thanks SF browser companies!
Mozilla happily killing the web with their friends at Chrome but at least the CEO gets to promote social justice on the browser's dime
If there were no ad blockers I'd stop using the internet for the same reason I stopped watching broadcast and cable television: too many ads.
If there were no ad-blockers, ads would be less devious about being intrusive. But then they'd be easier to block. So we would. And then they'd have to become more devious to circumvent blocking.
We'd be right back here.