Comment by bausson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bausson | Hacker News Reader

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TL;DR Selling a product which basically remove ads from another service does not sit well with me, should be two separates products.

I REALLY hate ads on web-based gmail client, but I suppose they are a necessary evil.

The an ads-removing feature send the wrong message.

I may buy (or donate for) a gmail-client-enhancer. I may buy (or donate for) an ad-remover plugin (well, I already use ABP and ghostery, and donated for the former) But I wouldn't give money for a gmail-specific ad-remover, that doesn't feel right (even if I am using ABP, maybe the 'specific' part?)

I may be wrong, but distributing it at two separate plug-ins may be better. Removing the "ad-removing" part would be the easiest way, because interested people almost all already have ad-blocker.

Even if you chose to let it in, not making it a major marketing point would be smarter. just let it there as an option (activated by default or not, I don't know).

PS: Attachment icons would be real nice, though, I love that feature.

PS2: Yes, I know, using ABP and not wanting to pay for that app because of this feature sounds like hypocrisy, in fact it is, but that's how I thought about it (I have build-in hypocrisy), and I may not be the only one.

You can use Gmail without ads if you pay USD 50/year/user for Google Apps for Business:

https://support.google.com/a/answer/60758?hl=en

Unfortunately those will come at the price that your Google account works slight differently (in regards to G+, YouTube, Maps, GTalk, Docs, ...). It's more than just removing ads. Unfortunately. I was very close to moving my personal Gmail Apps for Business with my domain but decided against because of all the side effects. I really wish Google would offer a clean "Pay for your personal Google account". Just no ads anywhere. That's all.

I did the same evaluation with the same conclusion a while back too. How much do they make per year on the ads I see? Why not let me bid for my own eyes? They can't come out worse. Somewhere in the serving of the ads, they check my profile to see what kind of ads to use for me, why not let me purchase a "blank" ad across swaths of my own activity?

Agreed. I have no end of trouble with the couple business GApps domains I admin, I'd happily pay for an ad free personal account.

I think the adoption of something like this would be pretty low, the return on which may not even cover the outlay on marketing to make it known that a pay-for-no-ads option exists.

I don't disagree with those of you who were a bit surprised to find this application blocks all ads indiscriminately. I also find Google's ads to be the least intrusive on the block. One need only login to Yahoo! Mail to realize how unobtrusive Google's ads are.

Microsoft thinks it's worth $20 for an Ad-free Outlook.com.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/ad-free-outlook

You can still continue to use your private Google account for Google+ etc.

A major issue would be the migration of your data from your private Google account to a Google Apps account. There is no direct migration path, you basically have to download all your data and upload it again. If you have a high number of mails, it might take weeks since download/upload are rate-limited.

without ads* I suppose. (and thanks for the link)

Yep, I've just corrected the typo …

> "Removing the "ad-removing" part would be the easiest way, because interested people almost all already have ad-blocker."

Interested parties will probably already be using free software to remove ads across the web, but you have a problem with this free software that removes ads only in gmail and provides a ton of other neat features? Adblock asks for donations too -- https://adblockplus.org/en/contribute.

With ad-block, I can allow non-invasive ads to reach me, while blocking others (with sound, flash, some ads provider). This is a useful service, and I can donate for it, because it doesn't feel wrong.

But why hidding /removing the ads in gmail feel wrong? Because they are not too visible. The only bad/intrusive part of gmail ads is the mail parsing to select which ad will be shown. I have no proof, but I strongly suspect this will be done even if I hide them, so nothing to win there.

Justify it however you want, it's all wrong. These services are provided free of charge in exchange for displaying ads. Don't like the ads? Don't use the service.

That's like saying "don't skip ads on free-to-air TV, don't like ads? Don't watch free to air TV".

In regards to what we are giving in exchange for the free service, there's all sorts of tracking activity, contact and content mining, and general Google account-related user information that we share with Google in order to feed Google's database.

Google aims to feed its database to improve its products and make its products more attractive to partners. Ads in Gmail are only part of the story of how Google gets rich from your stream of personal data. A few ads shown on the Gmail interface is not how Google is making its billions.

I believe the ad-hiding feature in this app is optional as well, so you can have it let ads through, to be managed by ABP as you like.

>> PS: Attachment icons would be real nice, though, I love that feature.

IIRC, there is an option in gmelius to opt for a GMail style of MS-style icon for attachments.

I have no problem with people trying to defend themselves. And Google can obviously block such people if they want.

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