
Internet users are increasingly blocking ads, including on their mobiles - frostmatthew
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21653644-internet-users-are-increasingly-blocking-ads-including-their-mobiles-block-shock
======
lorenzhs
I think this misses an important aspect from an InfoSec perspective. Ad
networks are very lucrative targets for spreading malware, and examples of
malware being distributed via ad networks are abundant ("malvertising"). For
companies (and individuals aware of the risk), ad blocking is an important
security measure.

------
wnevets
One of the things that made google's ad network successful in my opinion was
the fact they're text based and were obviously ads. I've never had a reason to
block em and its the main reason I don't get upset when people complain about
adblock plus's whitelist.

I wish more advertisers would follow in google's footsteps, the full screen
video ads are reminding me of the days leading up to the .com bubble burst.

~~~
anigbrowl
Absolutely. I run adblock, and HTTP Switchboard but I am absolutely OK with
Google's ads (and actually, Facebook sponsored posts as well) because they're
consistently framed as ads and they _don 't impose a big cognitive load_. I
even click on them sometimes, and even make purchases sometimes! If you tell
me your commercial message politely, well, I may or may not be interested but
I don't mind. But if You engage in the visual equivalent of shouting with eye-
catching designs, animation, faux-interactivity and so on - then I will tune
you out. I guess advertisers use these techniques because they work on enough
people to be profitable, so they don't care about the sales they lose by
irritating people like myself to the point of being blocked. But I don't think
they're doing their clients any favors.

The one thing from Google that I do block is advertising on YouTube. Just give
it up and try something else already - why would I want to import everything
that sucks about television/radio advertising?

~~~
smhg
> The one thing from Google that I do block is advertising on YouTube.

Which annoy(ed) you most? The leading ad-video or the banner at the bottom?

For me it's the second by far, although I don't see how the leading ad-video
can have any decent conversation rate. Even with the best possible contextual
placement.

Is it safe to assume there just isn't a good way to make ads work on a site
like YouTube? 'Good' meaning what you described for regular AdWords
(+Facebook) ads (text and display): being reasonably interesting/properly
timed and generating a decent conversation rate.

~~~
anigbrowl
For me the leading video. The bottom banner is also an annoying distractionbut
at least it's relatively minor (compared to the lower-3rd monstrosities
employed on entwork TV in particualr).

The problem with the lead-in video is _worse_ than a TV commercial, IMHO. On
TV you go to watch a program, and the ads are an annoyance but you wait for
them to be over and then the program starts at a fixed time, if you're not
watching DVR, eg I usually watch a news program in the evening. But on
YouTube, you make a selection of the video you want to watch next, and then
_instead_ some craptastic advert appears first. I don't understand why
advertisers think this is a good way to reach people; yes, you get their
attention by appearing as a surprise, but now consumers associate the brand
with concepts like _interruption_ and _unmet expectations_ , before they begin
processing any of teh semantic content of the ad. I frequently don't even
notice what the ad is _for_ because after the initial annoyance, my attention
is fixated on finding the Skip button and counting down the few seconds before
I can click on it. Many ads haven't introduced any product or branding by the
time I skip away, and those which did so have already generated a reflexive
mutter of 'Fuck off, Brand_owner!'

Now that I mention this, just _thinking_ about previous Youtube ad annoyances
brings several specific brands to mind, brands which I would otherwise feel
neutral about because I've never purchased any products from them. Instead
they're now firmly coupled with swear words. Think about that if you're ever
considering a video ad campaign; the people who click out early are probably
not just disinterested, but may actively resent your brand and your campaign
might result in a net loss of business.

~~~
susam
I believe that running the ad after the end of a YouTube video might want to
make me watch the ad. I've never skipped an ad that came after the end of a
TED video, partly because the ads that come there are generally very well made
and grip my attention right from the first second.

For websites as well as videos, I believe if the main content is showed first
without any distracting elements and then the ad is showed at the bottom of a
page or at the end of a video, I would not mind the ad at all and it would
increase the likelihood of paying attention to the ad, provided I reach the
end of the content.

~~~
smhg
That sounds like a much better idea. Views might be significantly less, but
conversion rates might go up. You no longer annoy people and it is much more
like a regular banner ad: it never blocks the main content.

But you would expect they tried everything and the current ads are the ones
that work best. Which is a bit disturbing (and the base for my earlier
question).

------
mikhailt
> Websites’ use of ever more in-your-face advertising formats (videos that
> play automatically, pop-ups that obscure the text you are trying to read)
> have driven ever more people to seek ways to block them. Younger consumers
> seem especially intolerant of intrusive ads, and as they get older, overall
> ad-blocking rates are bound to rise further, predicts Peter Stabler of Wells
> Fargo Securities, one of the authors of a recent report on the phenomenon.

Yep. Stop the "in your face" ads, stop the tracking, and people are less
likely to block the ads and the tracking. It is really simple as that.

I despite all ads that start playing videos, gif animations, etc. It distracts
me from being able to read the article. I'm okay with Google Ads, it's purely
text and not annoying. But the only reason I block it is because of the
tracking. It scares the shit out of me when I saw something related to what I
was doing on a completely different site on a different day.

Fuck that.

~~~
swang
Ads that you don't pay attention to are useless to the advertisers so they
won't stop doing intrusive ads

~~~
Nadya
Advertisements are useless to advertisers if I refuse to buy their products
based entirely on the fact that I've seen an ad for their product. So the
jokes on them.

I keep a spreadsheet where I add products/brands that have somehow snuck past
my adblocker. I avoid buying from them altogether and will look for similar or
offbrands.

I do have a few exceptions to this rule. If enough of my friends/coworkers can
testify on the products behalf, I may purchase it because it seems to be a
_good product_. If I already have purchased the product in the past and enjoy
it and later see it in an advertisement - I already know I like and buy the
stuff so it doesn't get added.

Imagine how fewer advertisements you'd see if more people kept a personal
blacklist? :)

"But how will you hear about _____"? The same way anyone eventually hears
about any great product: word of mouth.

~~~
manigandham
You are absolutely not the norm. Ads do work and the data for decades has
proven it. Many people do benefit from eventually finding and buying
products/services that they want/need.

~~~
6d0debc071
> Ads do work and the data for decades has proven it. Many people do benefit
> from eventually finding and buying products/services that they want/need.

Rather nebulous claim. And it's not clear that the second sentence is even
talking about the same thing as the first.

~~~
manigandham
The reason there's so much spending on digital ads is because its returns so
many accurate metrics on how the ads are being seen and interacted with. If
you're referring to whether people respond to ads, that's also been proven by
hundreds of studies and the entire advertising industry.

It's pretty easy to quantify sales before and after something as simple as a
billboard to show that there's an increase. Nielsen alone has done lots of in-
depth scientific analysis on this. This industry is pretty advanced and uses
lots of science and data, contrary to what you might imagine.

What is wrong with the 2nd sentence? Lots of people find what they're looking
for through ads. They dont just have to be digital, simple things like coupons
in newspapers still have massive reach and sales ROI. There's nothing wrong
with it.

~~~
Nadya
This is a larger issue with how easily impressionable people are. They are
largely influenced by advertisements - even the people who deny that ads have
any affect on them to purchase products they've seen in ads (can't remember
where the study was done).

It works because of all the wrong reasons, in my opinion. Which is why I go so
far out of my way to avoid purchasing things from ads.

------
SwellJoe
I only installed Adblock about a year ago, after years of resistance. I'm
happy to support the sites I visit regularly...but, when the trust I put in
those sites is betrayed repeatedly with intrusive, disruptive and distracting
ads, I get tired of it, and lose any sense of loyalty. If your site plays an
ad with sound enabled on load you're no longer worth any concern from me.

I whitelist pages I trust not to be abusive (reddit mostly). But, otherwise I
don't care to serve an abusers interests any longer. If a site doesn't respect
basic decency with their ads, I will impose that decency on them with an ad
block tool.

~~~
euroclydon
You should just stop visiting the site instead. Your still taking their
content, but it sounds like what's really not of any concern to you, is their
monetization strategy.

~~~
SwellJoe
Nope. Don't care.

If they want to charge me something, that's OK. If they want to have
reasonable, unobtrusive, ads without tracking, that's OK, too. But, what many
sites currently do is not OK. So, fuck'em.

~~~
manigandham
What is "not OK"? These are subjective concerns. If you're going to the site
you're still showing you find the content to be of value, so why do you feel
its ok for the site to not make any revenue?

You're conflating the ability to do something with whether it's morally right
or not. Ad blocking will only hurt the long-tail and freedom of the internet
that everyone currently enjoys.

Btw, payments arent exactly some kind of perfect answer. It will always cost
more than ads and is no less private, in fact you end up giving up even more
of your details.

~~~
SwellJoe
I view it as a negotiation, and this is me blowing out their proposed deal.
Imagine you're sitting at the bargaining table and the first offer the person
on the other side gives you is an order of magnitude more than you're willing
to pay. Say, they want you to pay $50,000 for a car that you know is only
worth $5,000.

This is the point at which you "blow out" their offer. You could say something
like, "I don't think we're on the same page at all about the value of this
good. I have to walk away if you consider that a reasonable offer."

The other party can counter with, "OK, what are you comfortable with?"

So, right now, in the ads vs. privacy negotiation I've said, "No. You're not
even on the right page. You are asking an order of magnitude more than I'm
willing to give you for this product."

They, of course, have the right to let me walk away. They can block me, if
they'd like, and put such things in their terms of service. But, the fact is,
they engaged in this first. The advertisers created this arms race, a race for
the most tasteless, obnoxious, privacy-invading, and intrusive ads they could
design. I am merely implementing my own disarmament plan and imposing it on
them, whether they like it or not (they don't, obviously...but, again, I don't
care; advertisers have destroyed any sympathy I may have had for them).

As I mentioned, I took years to install an ad blocker. I am willing to
negotiate, but I gave them an inch and they took a mile. They didn't respect
"do not track", they took steps to insure that I would be interrupted, even if
I wasn't even looking at the tab where they're spewing their garbage with
auto-starting audio ads (this was my personal tipping point, I had four or
five of them happen in one day of browsing and decided "Never again.").

Advertisers did this to themselves. They have no one to blame but themselves.
I don't know what comes next, but I've opted out of their system, and I'll
continue to do so as long as the technology is used in the most nefarious ways
possible.

~~~
throwawaykf05
This is the same argument from many people who pirate content, but here's the
thing: Consuming the content if you find the negotiation unacceptable is not
"walking away" from the deal. It's like they ask for 50000 for a car that's
worth 5000, so you just take the car regardless. Neither side is right, but I
would say taking something you find value in without the requested payment is
more wrong.

The better way of walking away is to just not consume the content. That way
the other side realizes their position is unacceptable without feeling ripped
off.

~~~
SwellJoe
_" This is the same argument from many people who pirate content"_

I disagree with this (utterly and without room for discussion), and the courts
disagree with this as well.

The content in question has been made available publicly on the open web. It
is up to me and my browser to decide which parts of the content I download and
look at. Further, I'm unaware of _any_ site which includes in their terms of
service that they require visitors to view ads in order to see the content
(even without bringing up the technical methods of enforcing such a rule).

I strongly suspect that most sites with ads would rather people visit than
not, _even if they don 't see the ads_. I certainly feel that way about all of
my websites (though admittedly very few of my websites rely on ads for their
value).

 _" The better way of walking away is to just not consume the content._"

Which I also do. But, when it comes to browsing HN and reddit and clicking
links off to sites I don't know, I have every right to proactively protect my
privacy and peaceful browsing free of intrusive/noisy ads.

------
seba_dos1
I think this article by Douglas Adams from 1998 is in hindsight very inspiring
on this matter:
[http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-05-a.html](http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-05-a.html)

The industry simply disregarded the opportunity Adams recognized and just
moved what we all hate from paper media to the Internet. However, in the
Internet we have a tools we can use to defend ourselves. It's really no wonder
that we, users, increasingly reach for them and it's only a stupidity (and/or
greediness) of ad companies that prevented them from predicting that.

~~~
icebraining
I don't see why we should assume they haven't predicted it. Web advertising
was and continues to be a billion dollar business, and until ad blocking usage
grows enough to kill it, people will continue to sell ads, even if they expect
it to end eventually.

------
sgnelson
Once the advertisers pay for the bandwidth they use on my mobile plan, they
can send me ads.

~~~
citricsquid
Doesn't this argument work both ways: "Once the visitors pay for the bandwidth
they use accessing my websites, they can visit without adverts"? And if so,
isn't the solution that if you're not happy with advertisements using your
bandwidth (but you don't or can't pay to opt out of advertisements) then you
should just not visit websites with advertisements? Seems like a fair
compromise.

~~~
xg15
Disregarding the other obvious problems with this idea, how do you get to know
whether or not a site serves ads without visiting it?

------
reader5000
I disabled ad blocking recently and websites that normally load lightning
quick would not even load or would lag tremendously.

I don't know why nobody can figure out a workable, voluntary microtransactions
model. If you like a piece of content instead of (or in addition to) upvoting
or "liking" or retweeting, you send a few pennies to the content creator.

The model now is simply people not savvy enough to install ad blocking
subsidizing content consumption of everybody else. That is probably not
stable.

~~~
RhodesianHunter
"people not savvy enough"

Or people who are plenty savvy, but simply don't mind ads and chose to
contribute to the creators of the content they consume...

~~~
michaelchisari
I wouldn't mind ads so much if I had an easy way to pay $0.05 to get rid of
them for a day, or $0.50 to get rid of them for a month.

As far as I can tell, that's way more money on a per user basis than companies
are making on selling ads.

~~~
geocar
For the last decade or so, I have used a cookie marked on bidmanager that buys
myself at a high enough bid CPM that I basically always win.

I serve myself a blank ad.

~~~
pjc50
This is brilliant. Roughly how much does it cost?

~~~
geocar
It's generally less than ten dollars a month.

------
746F7475
I'd be more than willing to be excluded from sites that have ads on them.

Give me a browser extension that completely blocks all sites that don't want
me to visit since I'll be blocking their ads.

~~~
a3n
Eye block, blocks user that use ad block.

------
axanoeychron
I hate adverts.

My problem with adverts is that they are not information, they are selective
truths or downright lies. I cannot trust adverts.

~~~
avmich
Indeed.

Roughly, the whole idea of free market economy, a.k.a. capitalism, is based on
theory of rational behavior of participants - and also on assumption of
complete information about the matters which are being decided.

Advertisements heavily change that last assumption (lies, selective omissions
or inclusions), so much that the whole system doesn't work as expected. Game-
theoretically, everybody incentivized to advertise his goods, while together
we make market working worse for everyone - conflicting goals. I wonder if
there are theories modelling this state of things.

~~~
adventured
Free market theory is not built on complete information, perfect behavior,
strict reason, et al.

Quite the opposite in fact. It allows for and can easily withstand significant
irrationality among participants, while still producing vastly superior
outcomes. The 19th century in the US more than proved that fact; by ~1910 the
US was embarrassing every major economy of Europe in terms of median incomes,
growth, wealth production, etc. The free market results in an economy with far
greater flexibility across the board. It can absorb shocks from irrational
behavior better than any other system. The more distance you get from the free
market, the harsher the penalties for irrationality: just ask all the
Socialist, Communist, and Fascist systems of the 20th century.

The free market system has no opinion on the behavior of individuals, that's a
relationship that exists among people and not with the system itself. In
actuality there is no "free market" that you're interacting with, such that it
punishes you for being irrational, there are only other people with economic
interests of some sort that may take advantage of your irrationality.

Reputation is the answer to your last issue with the free market, regarding
both advertising and complete information. Nearly every economic structure in
any market system depends on reputation, and even more so in the free market.
The free market doesn't require instant or perfect information, or expect
participants to possess such god-like powers - the free market runs on
eventual consistency, eventual recognition of reputation. Over time customers
will come to know you as either honest, or dishonest, and they will vote with
their money depending on the grievance.

Try running a typical business in a free market, lie to your customers non-
stop, over-charge them compared to what you advertise, and see what happens to
you. Your reputation will destroy you over time. This happens every day to
businesses of every size in every city in America.

------
oconnore
I mostly block for the tracking. In theory, a google text ad doesn't bother me
so much. But since my profile, built up from analytics-- fonts-- jquery--
recaptcha, and so on, is being sold to the highest bidder, I block everything
I can.

------
nickysielicki
I would bet that all the marketing and ad departments have seen this coming
for a very long time.

Considering that, it's absolutely no surprise that native advertising is
becoming so popular on platforms targeting the 18-36yo demographic. This is
where Snapchat hopes to start making big money. The conspiracy theorist in me
thinks that Reddit is cashing in on this already.

As much as we hate waiting 5 whole seconds before a YouTube video, I think
it's much less sinister than having brands shoved into your subconscious.

But this is the internet we've created. I think that we'll solve it with time.

I'm still not apologizing for using my adblocker.

------
Animats
The interesting item in that article is that in 2013, "Free", the French
mobile service, did ad-blocking by default. Not in the article: AdBlock's
company is coming out with an IOS browser with integral ad-blocking.

That's something worth doing in the GNU fork of Firefox. From within the
browser, you can do ad blocking and pop-up blocking more successfully. Add-ons
currently do it as an after-the-fact change to the DOM. With better browser
support.

As ad-blocking becomes more widely used, we may see a decline in clickbait
sites. No loss there.

------
b3lvedere
I will try and block every piece of network traffic i don't want on my
devices, including ads.

------
manigandham
This conversation keeps coming back and I'm not sure there's ever anything new
to say. I'm just going to summarize this the way I see it:

1) There are only two viable business models for digital publishers - free
content with ads, or paid access. Yes some can survive on donations and
ecommerce, but those are exceptions. Direct paid models also only work for
some very large and high quality publishers, the long-tail of great small
sites only exists because of ads.

2) The main reasons of adblocking usually are performance, security and
privacy. Performance is a given, loading less means loading faster. Security
is definitely a problem along with privacy, but mostly because this is a
global industry that has largely gone without any real regulation. Things are
slowly changing but a few bad actors have ruined a lot of trust by coming up
with increasingly intrusive formats and allowing malware on their networks
from shady advertisers.

3) Blocking ads absolutely does hurt publishers. It's not fair nor "right". It
might not be illegal but just because it's easy to do doesn't condone the
usage. Lots of sites have terms of service where they explicitly state the
content is available in exchange for the ads. The fair choice would be to not
visit the site if you don't find the ads acceptable, a choice that has always
existed. By visiting with adblock, you are showing that you find value in the
content but don't want the publisher to recoup the costs of production.

4) Going forward, advertisers are getting better with less intrusive formats
and better security. Regulation is also finally appearing along with things
like fraud and viewability tracking. This should all help, but it's a long
road. The other option is micropayments but this isnt as easy to solve (needs
massive scale, partnerships with sites, perhaps ISP help, etc).

Overall: ads work, it's a giant industry, adblocking does improve performance,
security and privacy but costs the publisher and does endanger the wider web
of original content. I don't agree with using adblock but I do consider the
reasons valid and that its at least pushing for a better industry (and perhaps
future model).

Edit: Downvoters, what exactly is the issue? Interesting that anyone
advocating that adblockers aren't an absolute good thing gets dismissed here
on HN.

~~~
falcolas
> the long-tail of great small sites only exists because of ads.

The internet, as it existed before ads, has shown this to be false. As has
Wikipedia - an ad free site which displays the writings of millions of
individuals. Oh, and book authors - they run sites without ads, and frequently
even post web-first stories, supported by following them with e-books
purchased by their fans.

> By visiting with adblock, you are showing that you find value in the content
> but don't want the publisher to recoup the costs of production.

Personally, I'm showing that the producer has lost all of my trust that they
can pick ads which are appropriate to their content. Most web site owners are
lazy when it comes to ads - they just allow through whatever the ad company
wants to put up. It devalues their site, and the fact they don't notice this
indicates their lack of respect for me as a consumer.

> advertisers are getting better with less intrusive formats

Not in my experience. Full page interstitial ads, inter-article highlight ads,
auto-playing sound and movie ads, ads for crappy Clash of Clans clones
advertised by busty, half dressed women... it's as bad as it ever was.

> ads work

No, they really don't. The payout per impression has been going down for
years, as more and more companies realize that ads just don't work (regardless
of the fraction of a percent of people who block them). The only reason ads
are still viewed as a remotely viable model is because the ad sellers are
lying to the people purchasing ad impressions.

"Look at all of this (bot) clickthrough on your new ad on Facebook! How about
all of these impressions (from click farms in China)! Now how about buying
another 200,000 targeted impressions? What do you mean you didn't get any
actual purchases from the previous 200k? You're just not realizing how much
value you've gained from being in front of people's eyes. That's another
$2,000, please."

Could I stop viewing sites which use ads? Yup. Should I? Hard to say. Perhaps
I'm nostalgic for the old days where content was made freely available for the
sake of being available, perhaps I'm just being vindictive against those who
have displayed no respect for me. Either way, I'm not going to stop browsing
the web because someone wants to make my eyeballs bleed for an insignificant
fraction of a penny.

~~~
throwawaykf05
I wouldn't hold Wikipedia as a good counterexample. They frequently run ads,
annoying ones too, only nobody thinks of them that way because they are
usually begging for donations. Additionally, Wikipedia is not in any way "long
tail". How many websites do you think can survive on a donation model?

Also book authors: Their main business is not the website. In fact the website
is a giant advertisement for their actual main business, which is books. This
discussion is clearly about websites whose main business is producing online
content.

How many online content sites do you know that run on alternative monetization
methods like donations? Now how many sites do you know that run on ads? You'll
find numbers will not support your view.

------
bitwize
Well no shit, sherlock. When ad networks decide that mobiles are a fucking
free-for-all and I get un-back-out-able popups like I'm on some warez or porn
site, fuck yeah I'm gonna block that shit!

~~~
ivanca
The worst is when they hack the browser history, so when you click back 20
times and you still see ads

------
jtwebman
We will just see more and more native style ads. If the ad is coming from the
same location as the site, it will be really hard for ad blockers to block
them.

~~~
anonymousab
If it's not dynamically generated, it can be blocked.

------
Ameo
I will never use adblock for the reason that I'm a content creator myself;
it's so very difficult to make money off of things online and pay for things
like server costs.

I think ads are very important for keeping the internet free like it is now.

~~~
dublinben
The internet was free for a long time before pervasive advertising.

------
snake117
I think one of the worst advertisements is the Bank of America ads played
before any video on the BBC app. It's always that one German lady singing
"Dankeshon"...very annoying.

------
CyberDildonics
I wish there was something to block or at least flag all the advertisements
masquerading as articles.

------
rhino369
How do I block ads on ios?

