Adblocking Goes Mainstream - 2014 Report

I think this is the crux of the matter. Paper magazines and newspapers have had static advertising for years, most people could live with it. It's when advertising cuts into a page you are trying to read by annoyingly grabbing your attention and stopping you actually reading that's the problem. Then there's the security problems with flash ads. The only trojan I ever got infected with was from a flash ad.

 

Yep exactly. Even if there is a 'right to advertise', it doesn't mean there's a corresponding obligation for us to load the ads in our web browser or email.

Similarly a right to free speech doesn't mean there's an obligation for others to listen to or publish our speech. But all this should be obvious.

 

Frankly, I can't give you an answer or a solution (and I'm not sure I'm the one that would have to do that). But I stand by my initial affirmation. IMO advertising compromised the whole idea of internet technological evolution; right now each of the so called internet innovation has something to do with more ways to push an ad to clients... Also, as you can see from the article and the text a quoted in my posts above, advertisers began to believe that ads are some sort of a fundamental right... This is not OK at all.

 

It's an incomplete thought to ask for the end to something, without at least considering what comes next. Right now, the devil I know is something I can deal quite effectively with.

It's not realistic to expect websites to host free content at a loss. Some will survive because of alternative sources of income (books, merchandise, paid appearances, etc) or because of big corporations with deep pockets, but that won't work for everyone. An internet without any ad revenue will force a change, for good or bad.

At least the way things are going, the adaption will be slower. I just dread the thought of ads I can't avoid - something I'm already seeing in Windows Apps.

 

The ad companies should have the fundamental right to sell their marketing strategies to willing buyers. Those buyers, vendors and site owners, have the right to choose the strategies that suit them. Their choosing badly, even very badly, shouldn't diminish their fundamental right to do so.

How long will ad-blockers be effective? Ultimately, the most persuasive, rational penalty on those who choose their ads poorly is when website traffic slows from potential buyers of the goods purveyed. They need fannies in their site seats to earn even the viewer-ship dollars.

 

HOSTS file (HostsMan) and Adguard works for sure. Maybe a 3rd party-DNS (like Alternate DNS) will work as well.

 

Those are good suggestions, similar things work for apps on a rooted Android device. It's been years since I used HostsMan.

I don't have my Windows tablet with me to experiment, but one of the apps is a TV app for a local television network. I believe the ads are locally hosted for the app, but even then there's bound to be some way to distinguish them. I can access the same content using the web browser and ublock manages the ads well. I'll just have to see how the app handles an ad not loading.

 

It's not free. I dismiss any argument which assert that advertising/tracking/data mining makes stuff "free" to visitors. "Obfuscated cost" does not equate "free", and any debate on the subject which does not recognized this is immediately flawed.

 

That link says it all, I think.

 

Actually it is free in the context of the post you replied to, because in that hypothetical scenario everyone was using an adblocker and thus there was largely no associated or obfuscated cost. Nebulus had asked for an end to the "advertising model" of the internet, and I was asking him to consider the implications of that.

You quoted me out of context because a keyword or phrase triggered one of your per-conceived rebuttals to an argument I hadn't even made. Let's discuss instead of debate, as debating implies "sides" and frankly that's not interesting to me, and please actually read the thread of discussion before jumping in.

I'm very aware that advertising has hidden costs. For example, cost-analyses have shown that free-to-air TV (with advertising) can be more expensive for consumers than pay-TV models, due to things like the costs of advertising being passed on in the price of goods or services. What I'm asking is for people to consider the likely outcomes of a web without ad revenue, as there's a huge conflict between ideals (which I share) and realistic expectations.

 

I think a lot of us feel that way, but there's research that shows we're actually pretty strongly influenced by advertising in different ways - which is kind of disturbing.

Just picking one from random: we're very influenced by the big brands when it comes to grocery shopping. Shops have to place the big brands for any given product at eye level, or otherwise sales markedly go down. Essentially the whole section becomes 'invisible' to customers without the big brand to guide them. For example, even if you like a lesser known brand of baked beans, you might not see baked beans at all unless they've placed Heinz baked beans (or whatever the market leader in your country is) at eye level.

 

Right, sorry for this (went back to read the earlier posts leading to your comment).

 

All good.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/03/ad-blockers-advertising-mobile-apple

 

Exactly, I still can't understand why this is so hard to figure out for the online ads industry. They basically created the problem themselves, just how stupid can you be? I recently browsed the web with IE (without ad blocker) and the ads are still annoying as hell, it's still the same animated crap.

 

I think you have to be a bit pathological to work in advertising. Your whole career is based on trying to convince people to buy crap they don't want at prices they don't want to pay.

They must have a certain mindset.

 

I don't have a problem with advertising though, it's the way how something is advertised that is important to me. For example, in magazines, ads often look good, so you actually look at them. On TV, the commercial breaks are too long, and most commercials are boring in Holland, so I skip them. And on the Internet they are too annoying and intrusive.

So I think ads are most effective in magazines and newspapers, the problem is I almost read everything online nowadays. BTW, here is another example of non-intrusive ads, I think this one is allowed by ABP. If all ads where like this (without tracking) I would probably stop blocking them.

http://www.officelovin.com/2015/09/28/a-look-inside-vscos-amazing-headquarters-in-oakland/

 

Yes, I agree, I don't have a problem with advertising per se. It works perfectly well in newspapers or magazines, TV is a different thing but that's what the mute button's for lol.

It's just that advertisers don't seem to believe in subtle passive advertising methods.

 

The continuation of the story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/13/us-axelspringer-adblock-idUSKCN0S70S020151013

 

I don't think that this is a right way to solve the problem. Banning users won't increase their revenue, users will just move to other sites.

P.S.: I visited bild.de and could read articles while using adblocker with no problems. It looks like the ban is not active yet.

 

It's a tabloid. I'd say they've done the world a favour. Perhaps they could go further and just go ahead an block everybody unconditionally.

 

Same here, I was able to see all content with an ad blocker. So either the ban is not active or they have incompetent site admins

 

Pay monthly fee and still mostly ad-free? Anyway, looks like they have fixed it, I am using ublock origin and getting "Jetzt Adblocker deaktivieren" which means "Disable Adblocker Now".

 

I just tried it, loads fine with adblock plus. I also have javascript blocked which might disable the adblock detections.