A new way to block ads but still support content: buy them yourself | Hacker News Reader

A new way to block ads but still support content: buy them yourself

adieu.io

21 pointsmankins10 comments

I think the interesting thing here is that they're using the existing ad auction systems, but you're bidding against the ad companies. So it doesn't require the sites to opt-into a separate system like Contributor does.

Sort of, only you get to chose your own content to show. That content can come from images being uploaded or dynamically coded via an API.

Also rather than having "plans" where you pay a fixed amount per month that you might never use, Adieu only charges you what you use. That charge fluctuates throughout the day based on actual demand, but for the most part hovers around $10CPM.

Very nice idea. I'm really glad that someone is brave enough to do something like this. The only risk I see with this, is that you might cause price increase for ads, if you will have substantial amount of users, which will make your service more expensive. Good Luck!

> $5 buying you about 500 ad blocks.

So that's what, 100 web pages? I could easily hit that in a couple of days.

You could, but you won't. We're not able to buy all ads, so for most people $2 will last a good while.

For reference, the average US web user sees ~$5.60 worth of ads per month. Of those only 40%-ish go out for auction, and of those we buy as many as we can.

I... why do I need to pick a separate screen name after giving my email address?

It's a little like pinterest, in that the groups of curated ads you create can be shared with others. And we use the screen name to do that, rather than giving out your email address.

Also, we have Big Plans on where this will go, and want to be forwards compatible in that regard.

Thanks for playing.

I think the service itself is a great idea! I especially like that doing it this way doesn't screw up the design of the page so any article is unreadable, which sometimes happens with some ad-blockers. Unfortunately the 'enter your email address; no wait, also give us a username/password crap' flow felt like a bait-and-switch sort of thing and I almost stopped right there.

Maybe prompt for a username when a user starts making groups of ads? Curating a bunch of pictures doesn't sound like fun to me (I'm sure that's just me though), so I'll probably never do it, so setting a username for that seems like extra friction.

Big Plans are nice, but optimize for little plans so they can take hold first.

Thanks for the feedback. I can see that.

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