Old guy checking in. When ad blockers first became a thing, my then-teenaged boys started using one and were trying to talk me into it. I was pretty dubious. I said my concern was that the model most of the web was built on was ad-supported. That is, people created content on the web to try and get visitors, and made money by selling ads on their site, or used monetized links. If everyone started using ad blockers, I said, that model would break down and either people would stop creating content or they’d go to a new model, like subscriptions. I figured few people would take time equivalent to a full time job to create content for free.
I think that largely came to pass. A lot of great online publications have closed their doors, and the are lots of paywalls now. The things is, the sites are just as much to blame. Most people wouldn’t have been driven to use ad blockers if the ads hadn’t gotten so untenable. A banner or a box here or there is one thing, but when there are a giant number of pop-up windows, autoplay videos, windows you can’t back out of, and all the other hellish stuff, people are going to be highly motivated to find a way to stop it.
That whole arms race was one of the things that ruined the internet, in my opinion.
I also think a lot of people who grew up on the internet have completely and totally forgotten about how bad it really was. They had ads that would take over your computer, ads that would download viruses, ads that would use your modem to dial 1-900 numbers, ads that would open 800 uncloseable web pages full of porn and start playing loud screaming music and moaning sounds to gather the interest of every other person in the house just a shame you for using the internet.
And dear Jesus don’t forget about the fucking toolbars. Dozens upon dozens of toolbars installed in every browser, everything from bonzi buddy to AOL email, detecting that a picture would be loaded on your screen and replacing it with one of theirs as an ad link.
Ad blockers have been necessary to use the internet for the last 20 freaking years.
If you’re not the kind of person who would go to the STD clinic and fuck every person there without a condom, you should never use the internet without an ad block.
Going to my parents house to help fix why their computer was “running slow” and like 6 inches of their browser was all toolbars that they had no idea how they got there nor knew what they did.
Yeah, and that’s what I mean when I say that the sites brought it on themselves. If the ads started reasonable, like what you’d see on the old Sunday newspaper, three wouldn’t have been much reason to block them.
You also have to add on the privacy issues with all the tracking, that also drove people to use them.
In the wake of a bunch of BS, Google came along with rather nice and unobtrusive ads, and it seemed to catch on. Then over the last decade, it’s really gone way downhill again.
Yeah, I didn’t mind an ad on the side of the screen when all of the content was front and center. But the problem is is that when you make it so that a company’s livelihood depends on forcing users to do things they don’t want to do, and there’s no regulation on that whatsoever, it’s just going to go downhill very quickly and if you think this is bad it can get much much worse.
I’m kind of surprised that isps are not injecting ads into your browsing and forcing you to watch ads just to use the internet that you paid for.
They could even charge you like a $10 a month up charge fee for ad-free internet and say that we’re not going to block the ads on the rest of the internet you just won’t get additional ads from us.
I’m kind of surprised that isps are not injecting ads into your browsing and forcing you to watch ads just to use the internet that you paid for.
If I recall correctly, during one of the more recent public debates around Net Neutrality in the US, it came out that certain ISPs were doing just that. Some people were showing screenshots of ads showing up inside their steam client (which runs the storefront and community sections as webpages).
Not sure if arms race is the right way to put it when 1 side is deploying nukes and the other is only deploying shields. Money ruined the internet, ads is just one way how it did that.
That actually is a major facet of the military arms race. Side A develops a missile. Side B develops an anti-missile missile. So side A develops a missile with multiple warheads or builds more missiles so they won’t all be shot down, etc. The defensive systems spawn the development of more or more-devastating offensive systems.
I used to not care about ads in Google because they were minimal. I was OK with ABP “acceptable ads”.
But I’ve since gone full scorched earth. Fuck them all, their trackers, their fake news, the terrible products. I’m still OK with ads in my search results (no longer using Google) because they are often relevant to something I’m looking for. But for the rest, the Web stopped deserving my respect. I don’t consume that much content online, and I pay for most of the few things I do consume.
As a software and data guy, having my search results tainted by paid content is pretty infuriating. I wouldn’t care if there were ads to the side or something, but I find things like Amazon’s search results almost completely unusable. And early on I used to point out to people how amazing Amazon’s search engine really was. It was a marvel at getting you to exactly what you were looking to buy. Now it’s optimized for showing you what they want to sell.
It really doesn’t matter what the users did in response, because the MBAs’ greed is such that they would have eventually ruined everything anyway no matter how compliant or patient the users were. It doesn’t matter how much they get, it’s never enough.
I’m also old (well, middle-aged is the right word I guess), but having lived through the adpocalypse that was the early 2000s, when the majority of sites were rushing to demonstrate their lofty stock valuations and satisfy their debtors by bringing in as much revenue as possible no matter the cost to the user base, I never really had that much patience for this business model, especially not once they discovered the concept of pop-ups (or worse, pop-unders).
I’ve also personally worked for a site whose business model was entirely based on SEO and click funneling and that has further eroded my patience to pretty zero. Pretty much none of our developer meetings were ever about “how can we make the product more useful to our users so they’ll actually WANT to come back”, it was always “our numbers are declining, how can we jam in more ads in order to meet the quarterly revenue goals?”
Yes, there are some sites that DO work hard to make actual, original content in order to earn those clicks, but for the most part, it’s an amoral, downright parasitical industry that doesn’t deserve any sympathy or goodwill.
I doubt very much adblockers are to blame for that. They’re a convenient excuse for those trying to squeeze as much money as possible from their users… but they would have gone that route no matter what. It’s just the nature of the economic system we live in.
I’m perfectly happy to pay for things I value, especially if the alternative is being forced to pay with my time and attention. The evidence also doesn’t entirely support your argument, since plenty of places that you pay for still try to show ads.
The evidence also doesn’t entirely support your argument, since plenty of places that you pay for still try to show ads.
Where was it ever said that a site could only use one model? The same is/was true of newspapers that cost you a subscription but also sold ads. Without the ads, the subscription would be much more expensive.
I personally am unlikely to pay for a huge variety of news sites and other publications, but I really appreciated having access to all that content for free. Sure, I might pay for one or two especially valuable sites, but my personal opinion is that it was better when the sites were making enough money to make it worthwhile for them by selling a reasonable amount of advertising, and the content was free to the users.
42% is a fraction, but it’s a huge fraction. Higher in some demographics, lower in others.
If your claim were accurate, they wouldn’t have to resort to putting ads on websites that are subscription based.
How do you figure? Most business ventures will ask themselves how much a customer would pay for their product. If the answer is lower than enough to make product, they either won’t enter the market or they’ll figure out a way to lower the price. Selling ads is a way to lower the price. Also worth noting that ads used to generate a lot more revenue than they do now.
As I said elsewhere, for most products, the makers ask how much they think people would be willing to pay for it. If that price is lower than an amount that would generate reasonable profit, they’ll either no go to market or they’ll look for ways to reduce or offset costs. Ads are a common way of keeping the price within what people are willing to pay.
You’re right that ads supported the model, but the model was also generally anarcho-communist in nature. That people wanted to experience it without ads was expected, and considered fine. It is fine.
Old guy checking in. When ad blockers first became a thing, my then-teenaged boys started using one and were trying to talk me into it. I was pretty dubious. I said my concern was that the model most of the web was built on was ad-supported. That is, people created content on the web to try and get visitors, and made money by selling ads on their site, or used monetized links. If everyone started using ad blockers, I said, that model would break down and either people would stop creating content or they’d go to a new model, like subscriptions. I figured few people would take time equivalent to a full time job to create content for free.
I think that largely came to pass. A lot of great online publications have closed their doors, and the are lots of paywalls now. The things is, the sites are just as much to blame. Most people wouldn’t have been driven to use ad blockers if the ads hadn’t gotten so untenable. A banner or a box here or there is one thing, but when there are a giant number of pop-up windows, autoplay videos, windows you can’t back out of, and all the other hellish stuff, people are going to be highly motivated to find a way to stop it.
That whole arms race was one of the things that ruined the internet, in my opinion.
I also think a lot of people who grew up on the internet have completely and totally forgotten about how bad it really was. They had ads that would take over your computer, ads that would download viruses, ads that would use your modem to dial 1-900 numbers, ads that would open 800 uncloseable web pages full of porn and start playing loud screaming music and moaning sounds to gather the interest of every other person in the house just a shame you for using the internet.
And dear Jesus don’t forget about the fucking toolbars. Dozens upon dozens of toolbars installed in every browser, everything from bonzi buddy to AOL email, detecting that a picture would be loaded on your screen and replacing it with one of theirs as an ad link.
Ad blockers have been necessary to use the internet for the last 20 freaking years.
If you’re not the kind of person who would go to the STD clinic and fuck every person there without a condom, you should never use the internet without an ad block.
Going to my parents house to help fix why their computer was “running slow” and like 6 inches of their browser was all toolbars that they had no idea how they got there nor knew what they did.
Oooh a free lobster dinner!
This is a thing of sheer beauty ❤️
Triggered!! 🤣
Yeah, and that’s what I mean when I say that the sites brought it on themselves. If the ads started reasonable, like what you’d see on the old Sunday newspaper, three wouldn’t have been much reason to block them.
You also have to add on the privacy issues with all the tracking, that also drove people to use them.
There was a sort of nice period.
In the wake of a bunch of BS, Google came along with rather nice and unobtrusive ads, and it seemed to catch on. Then over the last decade, it’s really gone way downhill again.
Yeah, I didn’t mind an ad on the side of the screen when all of the content was front and center. But the problem is is that when you make it so that a company’s livelihood depends on forcing users to do things they don’t want to do, and there’s no regulation on that whatsoever, it’s just going to go downhill very quickly and if you think this is bad it can get much much worse.
I’m kind of surprised that isps are not injecting ads into your browsing and forcing you to watch ads just to use the internet that you paid for.
They could even charge you like a $10 a month up charge fee for ad-free internet and say that we’re not going to block the ads on the rest of the internet you just won’t get additional ads from us.
If I recall correctly, during one of the more recent public debates around Net Neutrality in the US, it came out that certain ISPs were doing just that. Some people were showing screenshots of ads showing up inside their steam client (which runs the storefront and community sections as webpages).
Not sure if arms race is the right way to put it when 1 side is deploying nukes and the other is only deploying shields. Money ruined the internet, ads is just one way how it did that.
That actually is a major facet of the military arms race. Side A develops a missile. Side B develops an anti-missile missile. So side A develops a missile with multiple warheads or builds more missiles so they won’t all be shot down, etc. The defensive systems spawn the development of more or more-devastating offensive systems.
I still see one party racing with arms and one party trying to survive.
I used to not care about ads in Google because they were minimal. I was OK with ABP “acceptable ads”.
But I’ve since gone full scorched earth. Fuck them all, their trackers, their fake news, the terrible products. I’m still OK with ads in my search results (no longer using Google) because they are often relevant to something I’m looking for. But for the rest, the Web stopped deserving my respect. I don’t consume that much content online, and I pay for most of the few things I do consume.
As a software and data guy, having my search results tainted by paid content is pretty infuriating. I wouldn’t care if there were ads to the side or something, but I find things like Amazon’s search results almost completely unusable. And early on I used to point out to people how amazing Amazon’s search engine really was. It was a marvel at getting you to exactly what you were looking to buy. Now it’s optimized for showing you what they want to sell.
It really doesn’t matter what the users did in response, because the MBAs’ greed is such that they would have eventually ruined everything anyway no matter how compliant or patient the users were. It doesn’t matter how much they get, it’s never enough.
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I’m also old (well, middle-aged is the right word I guess), but having lived through the adpocalypse that was the early 2000s, when the majority of sites were rushing to demonstrate their lofty stock valuations and satisfy their debtors by bringing in as much revenue as possible no matter the cost to the user base, I never really had that much patience for this business model, especially not once they discovered the concept of pop-ups (or worse, pop-unders).
I’ve also personally worked for a site whose business model was entirely based on SEO and click funneling and that has further eroded my patience to pretty zero. Pretty much none of our developer meetings were ever about “how can we make the product more useful to our users so they’ll actually WANT to come back”, it was always “our numbers are declining, how can we jam in more ads in order to meet the quarterly revenue goals?”
Yes, there are some sites that DO work hard to make actual, original content in order to earn those clicks, but for the most part, it’s an amoral, downright parasitical industry that doesn’t deserve any sympathy or goodwill.
I doubt very much adblockers are to blame for that. They’re a convenient excuse for those trying to squeeze as much money as possible from their users… but they would have gone that route no matter what. It’s just the nature of the economic system we live in.
No, that’s what ruined the web.
I’m perfectly happy to pay for things I value, especially if the alternative is being forced to pay with my time and attention. The evidence also doesn’t entirely support your argument, since plenty of places that you pay for still try to show ads.
Where was it ever said that a site could only use one model? The same is/was true of newspapers that cost you a subscription but also sold ads. Without the ads, the subscription would be much more expensive.
I personally am unlikely to pay for a huge variety of news sites and other publications, but I really appreciated having access to all that content for free. Sure, I might pay for one or two especially valuable sites, but my personal opinion is that it was better when the sites were making enough money to make it worthwhile for them by selling a reasonable amount of advertising, and the content was free to the users.
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42% is a fraction, but it’s a huge fraction. Higher in some demographics, lower in others.
How do you figure? Most business ventures will ask themselves how much a customer would pay for their product. If the answer is lower than enough to make product, they either won’t enter the market or they’ll figure out a way to lower the price. Selling ads is a way to lower the price. Also worth noting that ads used to generate a lot more revenue than they do now.
“Without the ads, the subscription would be much more expensive.”
That’s not at all how it works. How is it that adults think prices are based on costs? They teach supply and demand in high school.
As I said elsewhere, for most products, the makers ask how much they think people would be willing to pay for it. If that price is lower than an amount that would generate reasonable profit, they’ll either no go to market or they’ll look for ways to reduce or offset costs. Ads are a common way of keeping the price within what people are willing to pay.
No, that assumes that prices are based on cost, which is not true. Ads are a way to make money on top of what people will pay.
He didn’t write a multi page thesis covering every single use case, quick tell him he’s wrong!
You’re right that ads supported the model, but the model was also generally anarcho-communist in nature. That people wanted to experience it without ads was expected, and considered fine. It is fine.