
Adblockers: The Only Way Out - colinprince
http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/09/27/adblockers-the-only-way-out/
======
chias
Unless the advertising landscape changes _drastically_ from what it is today,
I will never not use an ad-blocker, and I reject the notion that it is somehow
unethical: for over a decade and a half the online advertising industry has
been exploiting every technical loophole or shenanigan it has been able to
find in order to degrade my experience, security, privacy for the sake of
their bottom line; the comparatively recently the phenomenon of ad-blockers --
a technical measure on the other side of the fence -- has the industry up in
arms with cries that they're unethical. Really?

 _If your business model relies on technical tricks whose ethics are in a very
dark-grey area, you do not get to play the ethics card when I use a technical
trick to protect myself from you._

Yes there are "nice" ads and content creators that need to monetize, and it's
sad that they get caught in the crossfire. But I'm not willing to sacrifice my
security and privacy for the benefit of those. It's like saying "yeah uncle
Bob gets drunk and beats us but his buddy is a really nice guy just trying to
get by". Sorry Bob, you're not welcome in my home.

~~~
kbenson
The argument isn't that it's unethical to not watch ads, it's that it's
unethical to not watch the ads but still take what they offer in exchange.
_Any_ industry would be up in arms with people walking away with their goods
without paying. It's really not that different than the MPAA or RIAA,
especially in that since we don't like them, we feel justified in behavior
that normally we wouldn't take. Does the RIAA being a shitty organization mean
that we should steal (music) from their constituents, or that we should
boycott them? Does the MPAA doing shitty things mean we should steal movies
from them, or that we should boycott them? How is viewing content without
seeing ads any different? Two wrongs don't make a right.

Now, to clarify, I'm not expecting anyone to stop using ad-blockers. That's
stupid, there are very real reasons why they are useful, but acting like
there's no ethical problem with the current situation, IMO, is ridiculous. The
first step to fixing the problem in a sustainable way is acknowledging the
problem in it's _entirety_ , and that includes our part. Otherwise whichever
side convinces enough politicians first gets a temporary advantage, until it
sways the other way, or we finally get better legislation. Why not aim for a
good _compromise_ from the beginning, so everyone wins?

> It's like saying "yeah uncle Bob gets drunk and beats us but his buddy is a
> really nice guy just trying to get by". Sorry Bob, you're not welcome in my
> home.

Yet you keep using his summer home for vacation. Perhaps cutting off contact
would send a clearer signal?

~~~
joshontheweb
These sites should block users who are ad blocking rather than allow the users
in and place a guilt trip on them. How am i supposed to know when i click on a
random link that the owner of the page has a unwritten expectation that i
should view their ads?

~~~
CJefferson
Unfortunately (for this situation) ad-blockers are starting to enter a war,
where they try to remove adverts while keeping websites functional. It would
be nice to have an agreed way for websites to say "No ads? Go away", but I
imagine most sites would choose to activate it, so ad-blockers would ignore it
anyway, similar to do-not-track.

~~~
pdkl95
Sometimes I read webpages with /usr/bin/curl. Sorry, but you aren't going to
convince anyone that I am somehow morally obligated to copy the <img> URLs to
a computer with a graphical web browser to see some ads.

Much like how the "first-sale doctrine" limits a publisher's rights over a
work after a copy first changes hands, you do not get to dictate how the
client renders your HTML or if they choose to run your javascript after you've
_voluntarily_ handed the files over to them in the HTTP request.

If your business suffers because of this, well, that's what happens to
business models based on magical thinking and a misunderstanding of copyright.

~~~
CJefferson
You are the one who introduced "moral obligation", and "dictating" to the
conversation, please don't invent words I did not use.

I simply said it would be nice for website owners to express their opinion on
ad-blocking (some are pro, some are anti), and then users could choose to use
that information.

If this gets into a war, it won't be hard for website authors to start sending
you webpages where you have to call the javascript for the content (with ads)
to appear -- some websites already do. I would suspect however those who write
ad blockers will be more motivated to block ads, than websites will be to
write ad-blocker-blocers.

------
omouse
Ads are a very bad hack to the problem of getting people to spread news of a
product through word-of-mouth. Things like the AeroPress get lots of sales and
I've only seen them sitting on a shelf in a coffee shop, being talked about
online, etc.

The ads I see for New Relic, PagerDuty, PyCharm, etc. are relevant to me but
they are not actionable. They would be relevant and actionable if I am
consciously looking for these products as part of a report that will kick-
start the procurement process.

All the books I've bought in the last year were based on recommendations from
blogs and podcasts.

We're at peak ads on the internet.

------
mdip
I'm not surprised by the low number (9%) who felt a little bit of guilt
installing ad blocking technology. If you feel guilty, you probably aren't
using a blocker, hence the low number.

I feel no guilt, personally. I began using an ad blocker after receiving a
nasty bit of Flash based malware via an ad served by one of the major ad
networks (I can't recall who, but I want to say it was via MSN at the time).
That was it for me. The moment viewing ads on otherwise-safe sites became a
threat, I started blocking without guilt. Because it was an advertising
network, it wasn't just as simple as saying "I'll block ads on site xyz"

~~~
coldpie
I feel guilty that the content I enjoy isn't receiving any funds from me to
continue making that content, but I'm not convinced ads are the correct
solution to that problem.

------
LoSboccacc
Quite optimistic views there. Most content doesn't have a real monetary value
beyond generating views. There won't be an acceptable ads consortium,
advertisers will only get more ruthless or die.

~~~
chasing
> Most content doesn't have a real monetary value beyond generating views.
> There won't be an acceptable ads consortium, advertisers will only get more
> ruthless or die.

Let's hope that sort of content dies.

I mean:

10 Reasons I Hope That Kind of Content Dies -- #6 Will Blow Your Mind!!

~~~
VLM
Its interesting that my local newspaper is primarily a social network for
people I don't care about.

A concert review by someone I don't care about, a theater review by someone I
don't care about, a probably paid restaurant review by someone I don't care
about.

They do a heavy business in reselling a Reuters feed, corporate press
releases, and government press releases, but I don't need any of that, or I
get it from the source.

Its quite possible "news" as a filler product is obsolete.

------
Animats
_" all ecosystem components ... will need to congregate and come up with
acceptable ad formats..."_

That's the ad industry's fantasy - that they can come up with "acceptable ad
formats" which will be allowed through ad blockers. This comes from the
AdBlock sellout - you can now pay to get through AdBlock. But AdBlock isn't
the only game in town.

Ad servers can fight back. HTTP 2 will probably be used as a tool to fight ad
blocking. When it all comes in through one pipe, it's harder to identify ads.
We'll probably see ad insertion at the CDN level, with the ad stream
integrated with the content stream into one HTTP 2 bundle. Cloudflare may
already be doing this.[1]

Then we'll need better ad blockers. Current ad blockers are rather dumb. They
mostly use some huge file of regular expressions to recognize ads. Those files
are maintained by humans, and they're always a behind changes in ad formats.
Systems that automatically recognize ads, regardless of format, are needed. Ad
blockers of the future must work more like machine-learning spam filters.

[1]
[https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/infolinks](https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/infolinks)

------
freddref
I block ads because I don't like the idea of ads. I'm tired of the constant
attempts to persuade me this way or that. I want my attention span back. Plus,
the vast majority of content on the web just isn't worth putting up with ads
for. I don't even read the content any more, the comments are much more
informative and entertaining. ;)

------
zaphar
The actual title is "Adblockers: The _only_ way out" which communicates a very
different intent than the current title for this submission.

~~~
colinprince
changed, thanks!

------
cwyers
I was with the article up until "This will clearly favor micro-payment
systems."

No, no it won't. People have been predicting micropayment for decades now. To
call the attempts "failures" would be kind. Patronage (like Patreon, for
instance) and bundling are much better bets.

~~~
vitd
I use lots of micropayment systems - Netflix, Apple Music, Spotify, etc. Seems
like they're on the rise right now.

~~~
jwe
I might be wrong but I don't think those are services that can be
characterised as micropayment like e.g. Flattr is
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment)
for more).

~~~
cwyers
Right, those are macropayments -- pay once, and you have access to all content
covered by the service for the month. That's bundling, and it reduces the
friction/cognitive load required to decide if each microtransaction is worth
it -- every song/movie/etc. is "free" after the initial payment, so you don't
spend time worrying about whether or not this particular song is worth 0.05
cents or whatever, you decide that Spotify as a whole is worth the
subscription fee and then you consume as much music as you want without
further worry.

(The OTHER common thread to all those examples is that none of those actually
make enough money to pay for the absolute cost of the content they offer --
with the exception of some Netflix originals and Spotify-exclusive tracks and
what have you, the vast majority of the content on those subscription services
is licensed to those platforms at some MARGINAL cost, and the cost of actually
making that content has already been paid for by theatrical showings, TV
rights fees, album sales, etc. They're not really sustainable models as they
exist right now once theaters, TV channels and album sales start to die out,
which is where the sort of content that is being talked about here already is
at -- content that needs to cover the ABSOLUTE cost of creation through online
revenues.)

------
stegosaurus
Is there some sort of odd 'bubble' thing going on here? Is there anyone out
there who doesn't work at an advertising company that cares about this? Are
people on HN simply playing devil's advocate?

I don't know anyone who cares for advertising or for the relevant business
models one jot. Considering it 'unethical' to block ads is simply laughable. I
don't want them to exist at all!

When I browse the web I don't want random blobs of capitalism shoved down my
throat at every opportunity. I don't want an SUV. I don't even want to know
such a thing exists.

The 'paying for content' angle is so far off the mark it makes me feel as if I
have some sort of mental illness. I can't even think of the words to describe
how the statement isn't even 'wrong', it's just nonsense.

Allowing Mega Big Corp to bombard my brain so that an artist can eat is a
broken paradigm. What gives them the right? Lots of people like Mega Big Corp,
so I should be battered into submission until I fall in line too? They have
'money'? I don't want 'money' on my Internet. It wasn't like this, before.

I don't care about how 'obtrusive' your advertising is. I don't care what
colour it is, whether it's animated, what font you use. I don't want it. Just
like when I take a walk in the forest I don't want cars.

I don't care how 'unethical' you feel me blocking adverts is, either. Use your
men with guns; and forcibly lock me in a box. Prevent me from doing it. Then
we'll see who's 'unethical'.

edit: WRT 'not going to the sites'; it's just not a realistic option, is it?
The equivalent for TV would be not watching it. The equivalent for living in a
city (ex. London bus ads, tube ads, billboards on roads, etc) would be not
living in a city.

If you don't want to consume advertising there is no choice left. It's either
block ads, try to cognitively block ads, or simply don't interact with
society/culture any more. (I actually do try to limit myself to ad-free sites,
not out of an ethical compulsion, but because often they're just better in
general; e.g. HN, Wikipedia, forums/mailing lists, etc)

------
ffn
In my opinion, the "news" / "blog" agencies have already innovated on this by
just blending content with advertising with notoriously click-baity articles
like "top 12 ways your cat wants you dead" where every single bullet point is
a cleverly worded advertising for cat neutering, cat food, or whatever.

I suspect Facebook already does something similar via automating the hundreds
of millions of dead accounts in their system. My suspicions were triggered
because a decade ago when FB was still fresh, I created a page for my dog (now
passed away), and very recently, it shared a "funny" video. So either my dog
is using facebook from beyond the grave, or fb has automated his account.

~~~
benchtobedside
Or perhaps this dog in question was using an easily brute-forceable password,
and control now rests with one of the many huge botnets in operation.

------
symlinkk
Honestly I think the increased use of adblockers is pushing us towards a
situation where we will get our content from a "walled garden" like Apple
News, Google Play Newsstand, or, in the near future, some sort of Facebook
integrated news reader.

~~~
alhenaworks
>some sort of facebook integrated news reader.

The main feed already acts like this, only the news stories are those false
sensationalist articles being shared by people that believe them.

------
qq66
On the flip side of this, I ran a startup that absolutely could not have
existed without targeted Web advertising. Our first product was an add-in for
collaborating on PowerPoint presentations, and we were able to economically
target ads towards people who were actually searching for "PowerPoint
collaboration" or similar keywords. I don't see how we could have found those
people, or they could have found us, in a more effective or direct way.

------
masterleep
If publishers start to really notice ad blockers, they are just going to proxy
everything through their web servers.

~~~
wvenable
That won't help; ad blockers can block ads on the same domain as the content.

~~~
hugh4
But there's a BUY degree of A mixing that they NEW can't cope with AUDI
surely.

~~~
jdp23
fnord

------
Litost
I'm thinking aloud and obviously taking a negative purist view here, but does
anyone else wonder, if in 20-30 years, if civilisation has actually advanced
any, if we'll look back at ads in the same way we now seem to be treating
tobacco, sugar, alchol etc. etc. ie a poison, but in this case of the mind
rather than the body [1] [2]?

I mean all that mind bogglingly dark patterny/cynical gameplay we engage in
everytime we watch one. And there's also all the negative, misery inducing,
pressure when you realise, even if you sold the house and spent it all on
plastic surgery you wouldn't be anywhere near as attractive or thin as the
size zero model they've just tried to use to sell you the gadget you probably
don't need, that you probably can't afford that was likely made by some
"exploited" person from resources that probably aren't sustainable and then
shipped halfway round the world. And then you go and buy it anyway and hate
yourself for being gullible and buying something you probably can't afford...
just so you can support some guy who's just doing his job but secretly hates
himself for engaging in a zero-sum game with the rest of mankind and
persuading you to buy something you... every time he sits down at his desk so
he can buy his kids new ipads for christmas when they'd arguably be better off
without anyway [3].

Another nash equilibrium in a world crying out for socially optimal solutions
[4] or just an another inevitable inefficiency of capitalism [5].

I mean what ever happened to the Just In Time philosophy. We've ran with it on
the supply side so stuff is cheaper than it should be, but every day i get
bombarded by tens of emails from companies investing a lot of effort in trying
to kiddology me into buying stuff which i thankfully just filter away (as i do
with the rest of it - ad-blockers, don't watch live tv or listen to radio
stations with ads, don't buy into the whole sky pay for stuff and then also
have to watch ads). It's almost like a stupid tax.

At the end of the day I'm just not going to buy your <unnecessary> thing so
stop wasting my time/sanity/electricity/bandwidth and yours. It's not as
though, for example, if i want to buy a new tent (which so far i've done about
every 5 years) or do a canvas (probably twice a year) i can't just wait ten
minutes for the next millets sale or photobox offer (i mean when does photobox
not have a sale on for something they just keep increasing the base price of
anyway). And anyway i'd probably be better going somewhere that had spent
slightly less on their kiddology so their quality sucked less.

I entirely get why people do it, the "good" of the website/service/... i
provide hopefully outweighs the "evil" of the mechanisms i go to try and
support it, but if you didn't "need" the money, would anyone go anywhere near
an ad-broker?

I can't help but think if we factored money out of this whole equation, this
whole pyramid of snafu would collapse and we can move onto a slightly more
healthy, enlightened society? Is this the best we can do? Would basic income
help [6]? Or do i have to wait for likely societal collapse to a lower energy
level to render this whole thing moot (see Tainter)?

</more ranty than i intended>

[1]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/litost/15113770968/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/litost/15113770968/)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjCrL40JIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjCrL40JIM)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGab38pKscw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGab38pKscw)

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILgxeNBK_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILgxeNBK_8)

[5] [https://libcom.org/library/inefficiency-capitalism-brian-
oli...](https://libcom.org/library/inefficiency-capitalism-brian-oliver-
sheppard)

[6]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

------
logfromblammo
Advertisers will never be able to overcome the fact that humans have free
will.

With sufficient mental training, any person can add an ad blocker to their own
brain. The mind of such a person instantly disengages the instant it detects
an unsolicited sales pitch.

Having conceived the end goal, we now imagine such tools as may be helpful to
achieve it. Perhaps it is useful to build a tool that blocks the most
intrusive and annoying advertisement on Earth from the senses of the human
whose internal ad-blocker is not yet perfected. Expand the tool such that
progressively less annoying ads are blocked for those with progressively less
perfect anti-ad discipline. Continue until the tool allows one with no
training whatsoever to have the same ad-free existence as the adblock monk.

Once the person has chosen to not attend to unwanted ads, there is no
countermeasure any advertiser can take. The human is the ultimate arbiter over
the thoughts that enter its own brain. Whatever cannot be blocked can be
ignored. It is the desire to ignore that leads to the blocking.

The traditional method to alter the desires of the consumer--advertising--is
not likely to affect a desire that specifically targets advertising. You can't
get people to pay attention to ads again by advertising for the practice of
advertising.

All you can do is stop the bleeding, by immediately curtailing all practices
that led people to start tuning out ads in the first place.

At this point, if you want me to attend to ads, you will have to pay me,
directly. I will open one end of a channel that leads to me. If the cash stops
coming through, I'll close it. If the cash that comes through is insufficient
to compensate for the peace of mind I would otherwise have by closing it, I'll
close it. I will then take that cash, and spend it on whatever it is that I
would like to be ad-supported. Maybe I will spend a little on something that
was advertised. Maybe not.

An advertiser might ask, "what guarantee do we have that you will actually pay
attention to the advertising we push through that channel?" And my answer is
that no advertiser ever had any such guarantee in the entire history of
mankind. Even my own spouse peppers a seemingly unending stream of words with
frequent "are you listening?" pings. If my own spouse cannot trust that I am
paying attention at all times, no advertiser stands a chance. And as I find
those pings to be annoying, anyone else that asks the same thing is likely to
be told, "I was, but now I no longer will be."

Advertisers are just going to have to accept that most of what they do is a
waste of money and effort. They are broadcasting seeds with a low germination
rate, with no way to test beforehand which ones will ever sprout. If you don't
throw them all out there, all the sterile seeds along with the fertile,
nothing will ever grow.

~~~
developer1
Queue the pundits who will claim that the reason advertising is supposedly
effective is that you cannot physically ignore the brain washing. They always
pop up to claim that no matter how strongly you believe that advertising's
manipulation does not affect you, it does. That your subconscious sucks it all
in, regardless of the effort your conscious mind makes to filter it out.

I go out of my way to stop purchasing products whose advertisements I see too
often, or who use emotional advertising that has nothing to do with their
product. One example: I stopped buying Dove products the very first time I saw
one of their "real beauty" campaign ads. Bloody hell, you're only selling
soap. What on Earth makes advertising people think that stroking the egos of
people with body image issues would work? Perhaps it works on a lot of people,
but I sure as hell am not one of them.

~~~
logfromblammo
I think that may actually be more advertising for the advertising industry.
Let's see the results of the comparison between the control group and the
experimental group.

I don't think any such data exists, particularly among those who have
consciously decided to ignore the ads.

    
    
      Company: Why should we pay you if people are ignoring the ads?
      Admen: Because they work *better* if you aren't paying attention.
      Company: Really?
      Admen: Absolutely!
      Company: We're not sure about that...
      Admen: Ladies and gentlemen, mister Kevin Nealon.
      Mr. Subliminal: I get that you have concerns
          (keep paying us)
          about the effectiveness of subliminal advertising,
          (it really works)
          but you should take a look at this chart
          (totally legit)
          showing what appears to be ad budget on the x axis
          (sex axis)
          and product sales on the y axis
          (why not buy more ads?).
          As you can see,
          (really just a model's ass)
          more ads mean more sales.  So in conclusion,
          (buy more ads)
          your company should definitely buy more ads from us.
      Company: We'd like to increase our advertising budget.

------
linkydinkandyou
I block ads for one reason--they can and have been used to deliver malicious
content, quite frequently too, even on otherwise reputable sites who are using
a third-party ad provider. It's not worth the risk.

