
After selling his company to Google, this man now wants to block ad-blockers - stoev
http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/07/after-selling-his-company-to-google-this-man-now-wants-to-block-the-ad-blockers/
======
noir_lord
If add's didn't do such shitty things I'd happily run with them on with sites
I like so they'd get the revenue but I'm not exposing my computer to their
shit to nominally support sites I like.

If you block me for using an ad-blocker _I just won 't use your site/share
it/talk about it or anything else_.

~~~
adamc
> If you block me for using an ad-blocker I just won't use your site/share
> it/talk about it or anything else.

This. I'm completely at ease with this as a solution, but I think it's why
most sites don't (and won't) block folks using ad-blockers.

------
jordigh
I'm so annoyed with watching ads being my capitalist duty. I do not want to be
told to buy things I do not need. What I want is to look at a web site, not to
be told to buy shoes.

If you think, website owner, that I am losing you money by refusing to be told
to buy home insurance, then just give me a way to give you that money directly
and stop nagging me about it.

~~~
corobo
I have to call bull on this. You'd donate to my tiny site that popped up in a
Google search, one that you'll likely only visit once? Just by me providing a
donation link?

~~~
ronjouch
I'll just add one word to Jordi's sentence: _" just give me a way to
_conveniently_ give you that money directly"_. Like you can't ask people to
encrypt their email if it makes their life harder, you can't expect website
users to go through repeated hoops for the sake of properly remunerating a
website. It's just too much of a hassle, the easy option (installing an ad-
blocker) will win.

I will neither make the effort to click the "Donate" link on each site I
visit, but what if we could dedicate a Flattr/Patreon-like monthly amount to
supporting websites? It could be:

\- Slowly drained during the month, or split at the end of the month in
proportion of the visits.

\- Done by the ISP? It would probably be the least privacy-invasive option,
since they are already being trusted with knowing what my usage is. Imagine
your ISP usage dashboard greeting you with _" You're on a 2MB unlimited ADSL
line, for 40 $/month. You are also choosing to pay 10 $/month for proportional
website remuneration, which currently will go to these sites: <pie chart
showing my money split>. Websites frequently visited but not appearing here
might not be part of ProportionalMonetizationPlatform, or be paid apps that
you remunerate directly."_

~~~
corobo
Edit: This post is just terrible on my part, leaving it here solely for the
fact it has a response below it, but I apologise for it's existence.

\---

I think I'd rather just let you visit with an ad blocker than try to convince
anyone that that idea would work

You're effectively trying to take America's tipping system and apply it to
your ISP and apply that to the world?

Do you know how many ISPs there are in the world? They can barely agree on
where to route traffic sometimes much less a system that wouldn't benefit them
in any way

I think you're proposing the impossible to put yourself in a morally good
position. "I'll never view ads because <impossible request>" like the people
that claim piracy is fine because they wouldn't have bought the content anyway
so nobody loses out.

It's just a lie, it'd be more honest to just say "fuck content creators, I'm
not watching adverts. Who cares if they can't make money" than this method of
remuneration you've come up with

~~~
ronjouch
Hey, thanks for acknowledging the idea. May I point you to the conditionals in
my post implying the possibility of a honest debate? Instead of aggressively
caricaturing and strawman-ing me, could you try to discuss it?

\- Where do you see the slightest tentative to put _" myself in a good
position"_ ? I'm making a proposal and seeing what other members of this
community think about it.

\- Bravo for implying I'm saying _" fuck to content creators"_ . Because, yes,
I have both Patreon and Flattr accounts donating to a few of them. But like
said elsewhere in this thread by another commenter, this fails to compensate
"one-off websites" and am discussing what a solution could look like without
the drawbacks of advertising.

\- So because of some technicality (ISPs not agreeing) we are prohibited from
even _talking_ about changing anything?! Applause, nice approach to problem
solving.

~~~
corobo
My apologies. That reply had been made with outside influence on the grump
levels. Not saying that to excuse, just to explain.

I'll leave the comment there for the sake of others being able to follow where
this ended up but you are correct and to be frank it was a pretty terrible
post on my part. The post only really needed the troubles of implementing it
at the ISP level, if anything.

~~~
ronjouch
No problem, and thanks for the frank follow-up.

\--

Regarding the ISP part, I fully agree it would be tough to implement; I was
throwing this idea because I had never seen it being expressed and wanted to
see if commenters could point to related "prior art" / similar experiments in
some parts of the world.

Mainly, my own starting point for the idea is France's (and maybe other
countries?) interrupted path to a "Global License" for music [1]. The idea,
expressed as a law proposal in 2005 at a time of majors freaking out about
P2P, was to (fr.wikipedia translation mine) _" Authorize non-commercial access
and sharing of cultural content, in exchange for a proportional artists
remuneration."_

It was interrupted in 2009 in favor of a repressive fine system (HADOPI, [2]).
But if such a very much pie-in-the-sky idea can make its way to a law proposal
(with assorted technical analysis) somewhere in the world, maybe something
similar is worth discussing for ads.

[1] (french)
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_globale](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_globale)

[2] (english)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law)

~~~
corobo
Yup a fair point, my initial reply was indeed just shooting down an idea
rather than figuring out whether it would work and how could it work if not
straight up (criticism vs constructive criticism). I'd be interested in seeing
an ISP-level funding scheme, and moreso if enough would be willing to use it
that it could feasibly replace adverts. I'll have a proper look into those
links too, thank you

Thinking further (or.. at all) the models that flattr but more successfully
patreon provide do seem to work and would appear to be the best model if the
community you're providing for is willing to use such a system - and they are,
in many cases. I can think of a podcast or two that rather than use sponsored
messages are funded by their community through patreon. In fact I can only
imagine they're earning more and in a more stable fashion for doing so

I'm not sure if an ISP-level funding source would be feasible on the global
scale but that may just be my own limits talking, something that definitely
works in replacement of adverts is the product (in this example a podcast)
being free but with perks for those that want to support the creator directly.
The easiest added extras in this example would be behind the scenes, an
additional private podcast, archives of episodes long gone by.

------
hammerzeit
There's already an internet-scale mechanism to avoid seeing ads while ensuring
that publishers are compensated for the content they're creating -- it's the
very ad exchanges that show us all the terrible ads we see. All you'd need to
do is set up a pixel retargeting yourself, match it against the exchanges, and
then bid an uncapped amount against it while displaying a blank creative.

Admittedly this won't block 100% of ads, closer to 50-60%, although it would
most likely block all of the worst offenders. Likely net cost would be in the
$1-$3/day range, distributed amongst the sites you patronize. And, again, all
of the infrastructure to do this already exists. You wouldn't need to do deals
with publishers or anything like that.

I've always wondered why nobody's created this yet; I've always assumed it's
because people using ad blockers would not actually pay for an ad-free
experience. Other ideas?

~~~
niravshah
I think Adieu ([https://www.adieu.io/](https://www.adieu.io/)) is attempting
something like this.

~~~
dcgoss
Checked out Adieu, it does sound very much like what he/she described.

------
kwhitefoot
“Given the legal precedents, it’s clear that users have the right to try to
block ads,” he said. “But at the same time, publishers have the right to
respond, either by blocking access to ad-block users, or allowing us to help
them serve ads in ways undetectable to ad-blocking software.”

That's a bit like saying that encrypting a DVD is going to prevent someone
copying it. If you reveal something to the user you reveal it to the computer
too and then it's just an arms race.It would be better to have a functioning
micro-payments system.

~~~
nothis
>It would be better to have a functioning micro-payments system.

There's some things that seem inevitable to me. True flat-rate music streaming
services was one of those things and we're pretty much there. Moving away from
ad-supported websites to a convenient subscription model is the other.

I don't think the war against AdBlock can be won. How do you disable a
software that simply hides content? Force users to click the ads? Put them
into more and more annoying places? We already know the endgame of that and
it's shady pop-up orgies. I doubt the New York Times wants to be associated
with that. But I also won't pay $10 for every single website I might visit a
month (some, maybe, for only an article or two in a link).

What we need is a common subscription flat-rate that fairly splits revenue
between websites you actually visit. Not sure about the privacy concerns but
at least here, the user data wouldn't have to be used for advertising.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Agreed. More to the point, it can be argued that if I do not want to consume
ads, my browser displaying them means my browser is broken.

This entire thing where your attention is hijacked because you have a passing
interest in subject X is out of date. Yes, we've had passive ad sponsorship of
all kinds of events in times past, but it wasn't a situation where the
advertisers monitored your every move and were aggressively interfering with
your content consumption. It was a situation where they wanted to be
recognized for supporting the content you were consuming. Ads have gone from
being passive, supportive, widespread constructs to being aggressive,
directive, in-your-business constructs. Not good.

~~~
dhimes
Also agree. It's especially broken on mobile, which seems to be the Wild West
of grabbing accidental clicks and seedy tracking.

I don't mind ads. Trackers need to be outlawed. I'll tell an ad service what
kinds of ads I'd like to see if they'd like. I don't want to be tracked
though.

------
SpaceManNabs
My problem with ads is mainly that they could be used as vector for attacking
my machine. Two secondary problems that are not unimportant are that ads
sometimes redirect me to other sites while in the same tab if accidentally
clicked and can be quite obtrusive. If those two are fixed, I don't minds ads
at all when privacy concerns are minimal (anonymous tracking).

~~~
tonyedgecombe
My problem with ads is they try and sell me things I don't need.

~~~
dhimes
Anybody else remember when Google started, we all worried that their ad-based
business model would make the web suck? Their argument was that people would
_want_ to see ads. Well, maybe 1998 ads, but the problem is that ad-serving
has perniciously evolved into what we have now. Which sucks.

------
merrywhether
One way to push ads into a more palatable direction would be to have a browser
that goes much farther beyond current ad blocking. I'm thinking closing all
3rd party domain connections after 2 seconds of loading time and/or turning
iframes into click2flash-style empty boxes. I don't care so much about ads
showing up, but rather the endless cascade of ad-reselling that happens during
page loads and makes my phone have poor performance while the page self-
flagellates with ad calls. Get your ads in quick or render them on the server
or whatever. I feel like something like this (with white lists where
necessary) would help people get to a happy middle ground.

~~~
stephengillie
Check out uMatrix.

------
irahul
> publishers have the right to respond, either by blocking access to ad-block
> users

All the best with that. The number of sites on which I will have to disable
ad-blocker because you won't show the content otherwise is in single digits.

~~~
f055
Nobody is against publishers blocking access to ad-block users. But if 80% use
ad-blocks, you block out your entire audience and let it surf to the
competition who figured out how to serve ads that are not making people puke
(ie. sponsored stories, endorsements, non-intrusive ads, social selling etc.)

It really is the fault of publishers that people hate internet ads.

~~~
nraynaud
I think it's the same reasoning with paywalls. I stopped going on pando when
they paywalled. I don't see why I would pay to read Paul Carr feuding against
the Intercept, the entertainment value is mild, and frankly I would better use
my leisure money at the pub or for renting movies.

------
downandout
I have never understood this issue. Companies that are supposedly losing
millions, and in some cases billions of dollars to ad blockers can't figure
out how to randomize ad sizes, links, div names, etc with each page load to
the point where it would be impossible for an ad-blocker to deal with it? No
footprint, no blocking. It really is that simple.

The issue is more difficult with ad networks, since they always point to
specific domains and run specific bits of javascript. But it seems to me that
ad networks could simply offer a PHP et al script that publishers could
locally host and include in their content that would basically proxy the
connection between the user and the ad network. Clickthrough URL's would
appear to be on the originating site, like any other content on the site, and
the script would forward them to the appropriate site.

I have given this all of ten minutes of thought, and I'm on my way to a
solution. I don't buy that companies with real money on the line can't solve
this issue.

~~~
Arnt
Most companies don't serve their own ads. They sell an iframe reference in a
particular kind of page to someone else who runs their own adserver software,
so there's a detectable footprint for organisational reasons.

Quite often there's more than one level of resale; I've seen five and a friend
who works in the business told me he's seen even more.

(Digression: I have also heard that Ghostery (.com) makes most of its money by
telling companies what ads are on their web pages.)

~~~
downandout
I understand the iframe/network issue, which is why suggested a downloadable
script that publishers could host that would grab the ad server-side,
reference it as a a locally-hosted image or include the text of a text ad in
the native content of the page, and send all links to a local redirect script.
It wouldn't be that much more difficult for a publisher to roll such a thing
out than it is for them to add the iframes or javascript they use today.

~~~
Arnt
That approach would be slower (oddly enough the ad people seem to care about
performance) and worse, the ad server loses its cookies. When it's on its own
domain it can use cookies and track people across web sites.

~~~
downandout
The alternative is that their ads don't get shown, so would you prefer worse
or nothing at all?

~~~
Arnt
By not using that possible proxy, they give adblockers something to work with,
but they also increase the price of the ads they can sell for the rest of the
audience.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the recent squealing is really a sanitised
form of "the loss from the adblockers has grown bigger than the gains from the
increased ad prices, but noone understands our webapp tomcat CRM monster well
enough to adapt."

------
iMark
I'd love to see something along the lines of Spotify's model for the web. Let
me pay a set amount per month, then distribute it among all the websites that
I visit, weighted by number of visits (or some other more suitable metric).

Adverts for those not signed into the scheme, a blissful ad-free existence for
those who do.

~~~
LukeB_UK
Isn't that what Google Contributor is?
[https://contributor.google.com/](https://contributor.google.com/)

~~~
gambiter
Not totally... They only say you'll see 'fewer' ads. I'm in a similar boat...
I'd like to set my monthly amount and that amount be split up among my most
used sites, because I do want to support them, but I'm going to continue using
uBlock. The entire point is to get rid of ads in favor of something else.

What would rock is if uBlock or Adblock had a subscription service for exactly
this.

------
jkot
I genuinely hope he will succeed. Adblocking is becoming too mainstream and
too easy. Nerds are loosing competitive advantage.

And current ad-blockers are not effectively blocking Adwords, Facebook and
other major players. We need something to level the field, to bring smaller
players and more innovation.

~~~
surds
They are also blocked. AdBlock charges the major players to let their ads pass
through as "Whitelisted Ads". IMO, that is just plain extortion.

------
IshKebab
Wouldn't be difficult. Especially if you are happy with requiring javascript
on your site.

------
jlebrech
how about a feed reader than displays the ads of the source sites, I hate
checking a site and there's nothing new but I still get the ad.

------
yomism
When reading a lot of the comments from the ad-blocking people I hear this:

"I want to browse every website for free, I don't want to pay for any of the
sites that inform me, entertain me, help me to better do my job.

But god forbids if someone touches a cent from my salary..."

In the end it's just a question of entitlement and don't wanting to pay for
things.

If you are annoyed for seeing some ads think about the anoyment of the people
generating value for you without seeing a fucking cent.

Don't be so selfish, please.

