
Why People Block Ads, and What It Means for Marketers and Advertisers - infodroid
https://research.hubspot.com/reports/why-people-block-ads-and-what-it-means-for-marketers-and-advertisers
======
andrenotgiant
Clicked through and got the answer within a second.

[http://i.imgur.com/4hjX71d.png](http://i.imgur.com/4hjX71d.png)

What a succinct way to demonstrate why people use Ad/Script Blockers.

HubSpot is geared towards marketers, so I can understand why they push the
limits in terms of seeing what they can get away with. But, when you run a
content site and you want to send anonymous users Desktop Notifications, you
have to ask yourself: "is this really a sustainable way to use desktop
notifications, or am I just ruining it for everyone?"

The "fake notification" at the bottom too... How is that any better than those
banner ads that pretend to be OS dialog boxes?

~~~
ultramancool
Interesting, I didn't get that when I went to the site, wonder if it's being
A-B tested or something.

~~~
w-ll
Disable your ad blocker.

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oconnore
Yes, ads are annoying, a security risk, and obstruct content, but: they also
are a deliberate attempt to subconsciously influence my decision making.
Saying, "here is this product you may not have known about, here is what it
does" is one thing. Showing me pictures of attractive people to trick me into
associating <brand> with <good feels> is malicious.

Why would I agree to that?

~~~
vthallam
If you watch TV/look at billboards, you are already being tricked everyday.
Why advts online are so malicious?

Edit: This was a genuine question and I don't understand the down votes :|

~~~
oconnore
I subscribe to Netflix for that reason.

Online ads are not uniquely malicious, although they are more pervasive (even
reading a magazine, the page I am actively reading will not have an ad in
between paragraphs, though the next page might). I do think modern marketing
firms (and often therefore web) have developed more effective -- and therefore
bad -- techniques to have the effect they are paid for.

PS. I upvoted you because I don't think it was a bad question. If I had to
guess, it may be misconstrued as a [bad] rhetorical question arguing that "you
already have to put up with X, so it's pointless/inconsistent/illogical to
reduce your exposure to X".

~~~
vthallam
True! Guess a couple of banner advts on the side of the page wouldn't bother
anyone, the intrusive one's definitely are the reason most hate advts.

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lottin
Ads break several basic rules of social interaction, namely "Don't offer
unsolicited advice to random strangers." It's simply very rude. If I haven't
asked you for advice, then you shouldn't be giving any to me. End of story.

~~~
cortesoft
Ok, so no ads at all. Are you ok with no free news websites, only premium TV
channels, etc?

~~~
coldpie
Yes. The BBC seems to be doing quite well in the UK with no ads.

~~~
ourmandave
Ah, but those BBC guys collect a licensing tax on everyone in the UK. They're
like a state sponsored premium channel.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom)

~~~
coldpie
Yep. Just one of many business models that don't involve hocking malware to
your users.

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infodroid
The survey confirms that the number one reason people block adverts is because
they are annoying. There's also genuine privacy and security concerns.

Surely advertisers don't need surveys to point this out to them. And if this
is common knowledge then why is nobody doing anything about it?

Why are ads still slowing down loading the actual content or taking over
control of the web page? How hard is it to get this right?

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FussyZeus
Honestly I was very fine with just ignoring ads on web pages like I did for a
long time, but it's gotten so out of hand in so many ways: \- Risk of
downloading malware \- Having to download an additional several megabytes of
content I don't even want, but must pay for \- Dark pattern UI to get me to
click things I'm not interested in \- Reverse, poorly made UI that's difficult
to get rid of (stupid subscription things)

You can argue the ethics of this all day with me but in the end I just don't
care. I'm paying for the data pipeline, I'm paying for and maintaining the
device that can be infected, and your business model isn't my problem. If you
want me to look at ads, make it happen in such a way where it doesn't degrade
the rest of the experience. Several websites have done it just fine.

~~~
danielweber
Why not just stay away from those sites completely?

~~~
c22
Why not punish those sites economically by draining their resources while
providing no new ad revenue? That might actually incentivise them to come up
with a better model going forward rather than letting the web slowly degrade
into a malicious cesspool that no one reads.

~~~
danielweber
Why would you punish someone for making an offer you don't like and that other
people are fine with accepting?

~~~
c22
Why do you imagine the web works on offers and not requests?

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lotsoflumens
Here's the important part:

"The effect ad blockers have had on publishers has been tremendous, with
advertising organizations estimating that by 2020, $35 billion dollars per
year will be lost as a result of blocked ads"

I prefer to consider the amazing things that will be done in 2020 instead of
pissing away $35 billion on nothing.

~~~
Animats
$35 billion! We're winning.

For every site that has an ad-blocker, there's usually another one with
comparable content that doesn't.

~~~
lotsoflumens
Yes - we're definitely winning :-)

Did you mean "ad-blocker-blocker", or maybe "ad-blocker-blocker-blocker-
blocker" ?

~~~
seanp2k2
As long as you have more blocking tech than the non-tech-savvy public, you
should be fine. Those people now know about ad blocking (they're a little late
to the party), so things like ad block killer lists and extra extensions to
block blockers should work for another 15 years or so before it becomes enough
of a problem that it's worth it for ad companies to respond.

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aethos
I would like to take the opportunity to plug for my favorite adblocker, Ublock
Origin. It doesn't have a whitelist like ABP, and has a very good picker to
remove ads in case some sneak through.

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jotato
Where is the "Because I want to limit what can be shown to my kids " option?
Seriously, I run an ad blocker at home strictly because I want to control what
advertisers are broadcasting to my children.

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ChuckMcM
I thought this was an excellent discussion (and yes I told the page that it
could not send me notifications :-)) I particularly liked that they asked some
proactive questions about whether or not people would pay for content. I'm on
record as saying that I think this Ad/Adblock war ends with the destruction of
free content on the web. Basically the only "free/ad supported" stuff will be
stuff that was cribbed by a wage slave in a mechanical turk like situation
from other (nominally "pirated" sources). And there will be the 'pay' web
which will have some way of distributing money to the decent journalism. I
like the Blendle approach so far I hope it can hold up.

I also think the ads the survive are going to be product placement (for brand
awareness) that will be ads intermingled with the content, whether it is a
billboard being photoshopped into a music video or all the characters in the
content using microsoft products, but basically blended into the story. And
the other ads will switch to pay per action (CPA) rather than simply clicking.

Could be totally wrong too, we could just end up in click-counter-click hell
but I just can't see that as sustainable.

~~~
seanp2k2
Re: sustainable, it certainly was before everyone was trying to get rich from
the Internet, and IMO the content was typically much better back then, since
it was published not to make money but to further humanity and spread
knowledge. That's the Internet I wish we could go back to, not some free-
market micropayment dystopia.

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cortesoft
My problem with online ads are that they are too cheap. The company behind the
ad I am seeing may have only spent a couple of bucks to get it viewed by a few
thousand people.

With ads so cheap, there is no way to distinguish between legit companies and
scams/crappy products. With TV ads on popular programs, I know the company at
least is good enough to afford the ad.

~~~
majewsky
> good enough to afford the ad

"Wealthy" or "big" neither equals nor implies "good". The only thing that's
certain is that when you buy an advertised product, you're paying a premium to
fund their marketing.

~~~
cortesoft
I think it is kinda like the handicap principle in biology. The fact that they
can afford to waste money on advertising shows that they are 'fit'. I am not
saying it is a perfect mechanism, but it does show SOMETHING.

~~~
seanp2k2
Since it's so cheap, the thing they're good at may very well just be making an
ad to get clicks to sell a junk product or service. This also scales very
well. Consider Coke; bad for your teeth and causes diabetes. Expensive for
what it is and made with junk ingredients. Huge hit with consumers. Advertises
like crazy.

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rconti
Aaaaand ScamSpot wants to put notifications in my browser.

~~~
FussyZeus
Oh God, whose brilliant idea was that anyway. I noticed that start to pop up
awhile ago. Browsers do not need notifications...

~~~
coldpie
Websites are slowly, poorly, and individually re-inventing the desktop GUIs we
had 20 years ago. Welcome to the future.

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jkot
People block malware, ads are often hosted on the same domains or networks.

~~~
JTon
One of 4 top responses. Here's the actual breakdown from the article:

> 1\. Ads are annoying and intrusive (64%) 2\. Ads are disruptive (54%) 3\.
> Ads create security concerns (39%) 4\. Ads affect load time and bandwidth
> usage (36%)

~~~
nikki-9696
Thanks for posting that. I didn't read the article, because as soon as I
clicked through, I got a notification about notifications and a banner ad.
Closed the tab.

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ariwilson
It's funny how different the reaction is on HN from the users they surveyed.
Most of the ad blocker users they cited seemed like they would be happy if
websites would clean up their ads and make them less prominent or annoying,
while a minority would be willing to pay for the content on the site instead.
Very few of the ads-are-murder zealots that we usually get around here :).

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majewsky
I'm positively surprised by the rather large mindshare for security concerns
among adblock users. I've seen some anti-adblocking campaigns in the past
(most recently the ridiculous BlockXIT bullshit from stern.de) and when they
try to explain away the reasons for adblocking, they always omit the security
concerns. Probably because they are the hardest to invalidate.

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mdaniel
I thought this was going to go in a different direction based on HubSpot's ads
they run in the "Embedded" podcast: in those, they say they want to get back
to the story, too, and that's the extent of the messaging. I appreciate it,
and it obviously worked fine for brand recognition, even if I couldn't have
told you what they do for a living.

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matrix
Now, if only Hubspot took their own advice... They say the reason people block
ads is because they are annoying, and yet Hubspot has one of the most annoying
marketing teams I've encountered. They probably think deluging my inbox with
emails is effective, but the truth is, it's annoying to the point that I'm
actively turned off.

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a_small_island
>"A majority of our respondents also agree that most online ads today don’t
look professional and are insulting to their intelligence (63% and 56%,
respectively). Ouch. This is practical and addressable feedback: ads should
look like some thought was put behind them."

What a lazy conclusion. Can't take this article seriously.

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charonn0
I think they should have spent more time discussing the privacy and security
issues.

