Nobody wants to pay for the internet
September 14, 2015 6:33 PM Subscribe
Folks got to get paid. I don't block ads, although I wonder why every time I hear DISH IS HOW WE DO IT.
What I would really like is a selective adblocker that would allow me not to see truly stupid shit, like that intelligence-insulting chumbox. Also quit tricking me into not closing the god damned X aargh.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:40 PM on September 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
What I would really like is a selective adblocker that would allow me not to see truly stupid shit, like that intelligence-insulting chumbox. Also quit tricking me into not closing the god damned X aargh.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:40 PM on September 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
Countess Elena, most ad blockers have a blacklist/whitelist system so you can allow ads on site or from networks which you approve (like, say, Project Wonderful or The Deck) and nuke others from orbit TABOOLA AND OUTBRAIN THERE IS NO BLUNDERBUSS BIG ENOUGH FOR THE LIKES OF YOU
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:44 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:44 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
maybe a print analogy to online advertising circa 2015 would be if every full-page ad in the newspaper were printed with ink that would smear all over your hands and clothes and smelled really bad.
posted by vogon_poet at 6:44 PM on September 14, 2015 [39 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 6:44 PM on September 14, 2015 [39 favorites]
It's not just that nobody wants to pay for the Internet. It's that we've been told repeatedly that we shouldn't have to. And when people point out that ultimately, content creators need to eat too, there's a whole litany of excuses as to why they don't need to be paid.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:44 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:44 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
There is definitely a reckoning coming, and I'm not convinced there's still time to save ads by blocking ads. Maybe 5 years ago, that would have been possible -- sure, even then, ads were obnoxious, but I feel like that was nothing compared to a lot of today's bullshit. But, nowadays, what we have is ... well ... completely unsustainable bullshit that even the most pro-people-getting-paid consumers are tired of. Consequently, even people who otherwise weren't savvy enough to even consider that ad blocking was a thing are starting to catch on.
Apple's embrace of ad blocking is a massive shot across the bow of advertisers everywhere.
I honestly do feel bad for a lot of ad-supported sites and their fate in the likely ad blocked future (MeFi not the least of them), but ultimately this is nobody's fault but the ad industry. In their drive for eyeballs, they have pushed things so far beyond what anyone would consider reasonable that there's going to be practically nobody left defending them when it all finally falls apart.
posted by tocts at 6:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [39 favorites]
Apple's embrace of ad blocking is a massive shot across the bow of advertisers everywhere.
I honestly do feel bad for a lot of ad-supported sites and their fate in the likely ad blocked future (MeFi not the least of them), but ultimately this is nobody's fault but the ad industry. In their drive for eyeballs, they have pushed things so far beyond what anyone would consider reasonable that there's going to be practically nobody left defending them when it all finally falls apart.
posted by tocts at 6:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [39 favorites]
One of my favorite internet comics has ads that (according to Ghostery) load 69 or 70 trackers all at once. Straub, I love ya, but until you get a handle on that shizz I'm not going to whitelist you. I'll buy your books instead.
posted by Existential Dread at 6:48 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by Existential Dread at 6:48 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
I don't feel bad for sending most e-mail to the spam bin, I don't feel bad for skipping commericals with a DVR, I don't feel bad for using adblock on shitty manipulative ads, I don't feel bad for using noscript and ghostery and many other things.
I'm not here to be advertised to.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 6:51 PM on September 14, 2015 [78 favorites]
I'm not here to be advertised to.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 6:51 PM on September 14, 2015 [78 favorites]
Did people say the same thing when browsers started blocking pop-ups?
posted by dilaudid at 6:52 PM on September 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by dilaudid at 6:52 PM on September 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
Is this reckoning going to be like when home taping killed music?
posted by echo target at 6:52 PM on September 14, 2015 [41 favorites]
posted by echo target at 6:52 PM on September 14, 2015 [41 favorites]
In the fully ad-blocked future sponsor-supported sites will simply have to host ads on the same server as the content -- and there will need to be some other verifiable method of ensuring honest viewcounts. In no other medium has the trade-off with readers/viewers been not only that they have to see the ads (fine) but also that they need to agree to be tracked by the sponsors/ad-networks (a much bigger price for the same material).
(It would be almost trivial for modern digital cable companies to track and sell their subscribers exact viewing habits, but they don't, right? Is there legislation barring this?)
posted by nobody at 6:55 PM on September 14, 2015 [13 favorites]
(It would be almost trivial for modern digital cable companies to track and sell their subscribers exact viewing habits, but they don't, right? Is there legislation barring this?)
posted by nobody at 6:55 PM on September 14, 2015 [13 favorites]
"What is not in dispute is that if ad-blocking becomes ubiquitous (and there’s nearly every reason to think that it will be!) it will be devastating for publications who derive much or all of their revenue from advertising—which comprises most of the professional publications on the internet."
"'Broadly speaking, the ability of [ad blocking software] is to control the spread of [ads]. Because the history of [the Internet] is that [the user] escapes all barriers. [The user] breaks free. [The user] expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But [the user] finds a way.' Malcolm shook his head. 'I don't mean to be philosophical, but there it is.'" - Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
posted by SpacemanStix at 6:58 PM on September 14, 2015 [7 favorites]
"'Broadly speaking, the ability of [ad blocking software] is to control the spread of [ads]. Because the history of [the Internet] is that [the user] escapes all barriers. [The user] breaks free. [The user] expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But [the user] finds a way.' Malcolm shook his head. 'I don't mean to be philosophical, but there it is.'" - Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
posted by SpacemanStix at 6:58 PM on September 14, 2015 [7 favorites]
I thought I was paying for my interwebs by letting social media harvest my demographic data. I gotta watch the ads too?
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:59 PM on September 14, 2015 [23 favorites]
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:59 PM on September 14, 2015 [23 favorites]
I block ads and scripts on my desktop, but I certainly am conflicted about it. But, then I fire up Safari on my iPad, and I'm quickly reminded how shitty and ad-choked so many sites are today, not to mention how long it takes sites to fully load due to the umpteen remote scripts, trackers and whatnot. And then there are the "Your iOS device has been locked. Call us to unlock it" bullshit scam scripts that seem to be popping up more often. Fuck all of 'em.
Personally, I can't wait for iOS 9 and its filtering system.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:00 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
Personally, I can't wait for iOS 9 and its filtering system.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:00 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
I pay between $5-$40/per year to a lot of websites or Firefox Add-makers or band at Bandcamp I stream constantly at work even though I bought the album already. I often wonder why subscription models don't work better. Is it entirely because we think it's supposed to be free or because $152/year is too much to pay to read the New York Times online?
posted by crush-onastick at 7:02 PM on September 14, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by crush-onastick at 7:02 PM on September 14, 2015 [4 favorites]
If your site crashes my browser or sends me to an App Store, then your site gets viewed in an ad blocker, if it gets viewed at all.
posted by humanfont at 7:04 PM on September 14, 2015 [25 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 7:04 PM on September 14, 2015 [25 favorites]
Welp, if they could guarantee ads that
- won't crash my browser or drag it screaming to its knees,
- be completely malware free, and
- respects my limited bandwidth (crappy DSL), and
- doesn't interfere with my ability to actually use the site I am visiting,
then I would consider disabling adblocking.
posted by Samizdata at 7:11 PM on September 14, 2015 [34 favorites]
- won't crash my browser or drag it screaming to its knees,
- be completely malware free, and
- respects my limited bandwidth (crappy DSL), and
- doesn't interfere with my ability to actually use the site I am visiting,
then I would consider disabling adblocking.
posted by Samizdata at 7:11 PM on September 14, 2015 [34 favorites]
maybe a print analogy to online advertising circa 2015 would be if every full-page ad in the newspaper were printed with ink that would smear all over your hands and clothes and smelled really bad.
...and then grabbed you by the throat, stuck you with a dirty syringe filled with god-knows-what, and danced away laughing, "Come to our kingdom! All the women have rilly big boobs!"
posted by sexyrobot at 7:11 PM on September 14, 2015 [14 favorites]
...and then grabbed you by the throat, stuck you with a dirty syringe filled with god-knows-what, and danced away laughing, "Come to our kingdom! All the women have rilly big boobs!"
posted by sexyrobot at 7:11 PM on September 14, 2015 [14 favorites]
From the first paragraph of the linked article, on "The Site", Dev Null was portrayed by future ubiquitous web personality Leo Laporte. That is all you need to know.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:14 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:14 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is it entirely because we think it's supposed to be free or because $152/year is too much to pay to read the New York Times online?
Both. "Why do I need to pay $152/year when I get the news for free on my TV or somewhere else on the Internet?"
Then there's the gall of wanting to charge me almost the same as home delivery (like a quarter less per week) to view it on more than a single type of mobile device. The New York times pays somewhere in the region of $60+ million a year on paper and ink. I'm doing them a god damn favor and they just want to kick me in the dick and steal my lunch money. Well then, fuck you New York Times. I'll just adblock you any time I want to read what Krugman has to say.
posted by Talez at 7:19 PM on September 14, 2015 [14 favorites]
Both. "Why do I need to pay $152/year when I get the news for free on my TV or somewhere else on the Internet?"
Then there's the gall of wanting to charge me almost the same as home delivery (like a quarter less per week) to view it on more than a single type of mobile device. The New York times pays somewhere in the region of $60+ million a year on paper and ink. I'm doing them a god damn favor and they just want to kick me in the dick and steal my lunch money. Well then, fuck you New York Times. I'll just adblock you any time I want to read what Krugman has to say.
posted by Talez at 7:19 PM on September 14, 2015 [14 favorites]
pi-hole has made me so very happy. If you have an idle Pi, check it out. I give less than one fraction of a fuck if ad-dependent websites collapse (MeFi notwithstanding, I need to pay up, again, actually). I have an essentially infinite pile of books, ebooks, and magazines that I already pay for.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 7:24 PM on September 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 7:24 PM on September 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
The only correlation I see between them having to pay the bandwidth costs of uploading shit to me that stands like a billion-to-one chance of influencing my decision to purchase something* and the content creator getting paid is a negative one. The fact that I don't get their ads means they have more money to pay people, not less.
*I can't prove I have never been influenced by an ad -- positively, anyway** -- but I could probably count the number of times it's occurred on one hand.
**For example, Geico's massive ad spending is enough to prevent me from ever doing business with them. When they're blowing the premiums on ad buys on such a staggering scale what are the odds they're really in the business of paying claims?
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:30 PM on September 14, 2015 [7 favorites]
*I can't prove I have never been influenced by an ad -- positively, anyway** -- but I could probably count the number of times it's occurred on one hand.
**For example, Geico's massive ad spending is enough to prevent me from ever doing business with them. When they're blowing the premiums on ad buys on such a staggering scale what are the odds they're really in the business of paying claims?
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:30 PM on September 14, 2015 [7 favorites]
Then there's the gall of wanting to charge me almost the same as home delivery (like a quarter less per week) to view it on more than a single type of mobile device. The New York times pays somewhere in the region of $60+ million a year on paper and ink. I'm doing them a god damn favor and they just want to kick me in the dick and steal my lunch money.
Ugh, this argument is a bad penny that refuses to die. Why is it that the value of the elements of the physical copy of media constantly gets overestimated in value?
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:30 PM on September 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
Ugh, this argument is a bad penny that refuses to die. Why is it that the value of the elements of the physical copy of media constantly gets overestimated in value?
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:30 PM on September 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
Is it entirely because we think it's supposed to be free or because $152/year is too much to pay to read the New York Times online?
It's not so much that I think the internet is supposed to be free as it is that the current structure of content propagation on the internet doesn't readily support subscription-based payments directed to content creators. In an average week, I click on different links that take me to NY Times, Washington Post, Daily Mail (yes, christ, I know), Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CBC, BBC, NPR, HuffPost, Salon, and Slate. And that's just the ones I see basically every week. In the same week, I probably click on links to things on a dozen other news sites that aren't on that list and that I visit once and never visit again or not for a long time.
I wouldn't mind paying for a subscription to a new site or even two, but I can't afford to pay for 12. But because of how information comes to my attention -- MetaFilter links, Facebook posts, things I see on Twitter, etc. -- I can't choose a single news source and have that be the thing I read. That's just not how the internet works anymore.
I suspect the future of news on the internet may be some kind of AmazonPrime-esque, all-you-can-read service that includes content from all the major players and that pays out to individual sites based on how much of them you read. I'd be willing to pay $20 a month for that just to avoid the hassle of running out of free articles every month, and somewhat less aggravating advertising (fewer trackers, faster page loads, no auto-playing video).
posted by jacquilynne at 7:41 PM on September 14, 2015 [26 favorites]
It's not so much that I think the internet is supposed to be free as it is that the current structure of content propagation on the internet doesn't readily support subscription-based payments directed to content creators. In an average week, I click on different links that take me to NY Times, Washington Post, Daily Mail (yes, christ, I know), Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CBC, BBC, NPR, HuffPost, Salon, and Slate. And that's just the ones I see basically every week. In the same week, I probably click on links to things on a dozen other news sites that aren't on that list and that I visit once and never visit again or not for a long time.
I wouldn't mind paying for a subscription to a new site or even two, but I can't afford to pay for 12. But because of how information comes to my attention -- MetaFilter links, Facebook posts, things I see on Twitter, etc. -- I can't choose a single news source and have that be the thing I read. That's just not how the internet works anymore.
I suspect the future of news on the internet may be some kind of AmazonPrime-esque, all-you-can-read service that includes content from all the major players and that pays out to individual sites based on how much of them you read. I'd be willing to pay $20 a month for that just to avoid the hassle of running out of free articles every month, and somewhat less aggravating advertising (fewer trackers, faster page loads, no auto-playing video).
posted by jacquilynne at 7:41 PM on September 14, 2015 [26 favorites]
Nobody asked me whether I wanted to support a business model based on advertising, they just built the content and surrounded it with ads. I never agreed, and continue to not agree; there is no moral EULA that says that if I consume their content, I have agreed to their business model. I am perfectly happy with a world of subscriptions, public support, and amateurism. I am sympathetic for anyone whose livelihood is disrupted, just as I am for any technological disruption, and will do what I can with public money, retraining, welfare, etc, to get those people into other jobs. If everyone acts as I do, the world will be a perfectly nice place. I block all ads.
posted by chortly at 7:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [38 favorites]
posted by chortly at 7:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [38 favorites]
I thought it would be good to do a "Spotify for news", and since most of my good ideas are already someone else's established business, I googled that and found inkl, who bill themselves as "Spotify for news".
Only problem seems to be that they don't support PC as fully as they do mobile devices. But I think they're on the right track: I'd pay a subscription to someone who would dole it out based on where I visit, but I don't want a separate subscription to every site I've ever come across a link to.
posted by pulposus at 7:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Only problem seems to be that they don't support PC as fully as they do mobile devices. But I think they're on the right track: I'd pay a subscription to someone who would dole it out based on where I visit, but I don't want a separate subscription to every site I've ever come across a link to.
posted by pulposus at 7:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Countess Elena, most ad blockers have a blacklist/whitelist system
No, that's not the point. A tasteful or even tacky ad for something we will never be interested in is just not a big deal, don't even notice. What we need is a, oh perhaps crowedsourced, rating of ranges of ad-tastefulness. Cute, funny, clever, tacky, annoying, makes one angry, insulting ...... all those fine, but just filter out the over-loud-insulting-to-a-mollusk-level-awareness-wont-stop-or-go-away. Just that.
posted by sammyo at 7:50 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
No, that's not the point. A tasteful or even tacky ad for something we will never be interested in is just not a big deal, don't even notice. What we need is a, oh perhaps crowedsourced, rating of ranges of ad-tastefulness. Cute, funny, clever, tacky, annoying, makes one angry, insulting ...... all those fine, but just filter out the over-loud-insulting-to-a-mollusk-level-awareness-wont-stop-or-go-away. Just that.
posted by sammyo at 7:50 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
I pay Google $5 a month to turn ads into cats. Content creators still get paid, I get to see cats instead of ads, the only people who lose are marketers and here I use the term "people" very loosely.
posted by Pyry at 7:52 PM on September 14, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 7:52 PM on September 14, 2015 [13 favorites]
the print edition of the New York Times transitioned so slowly to full-page ad stickers covering the articles and editorials and embedded ad speakers like the ones that play music in those birthday cards that I hardly even noticed it happen
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:53 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:53 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
I resisted adblockers for a long time, but the point when ad networks became one of the major security risks to my computer was the point I gave up.
posted by xiw at 7:54 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by xiw at 7:54 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
I block ads. I've often wondered what would happen when everyone blocks ads (if everyone blocks ads). Over 90% of Google and Facebook's revenues come from advertising. If all that revenue were to go *poof*...that would be a huge blow to company earnings, big enough to affect the broader market. It's something that basically nobody in the finance community seems to care or worry about - I mean there are analysts who are deep in the weeds in these stocks who must know it's a problem, but again, "nobody cares." For now. But maybe in a few years time (will the iOS adblocker do it?) it will become common knowledge and it will be all anyone can talk about when Google stock is tanking.
Most people these days browse on mobile - I mean a lot of people my age (mid-late 20's) don't even have a laptop at home, just phones or tablets - and so for now that way of adblocking is safe. And of course, tons of people just don't know or care about ad blocking. Of course, the iOS adblocker will be a game changer if it is true.
My guess is
1) Google will pay off all the ad blockers (they already do this now to a limited extent) and/or pay off Apple to outlaw the adblocking programs from the App Store
2) Since Google basically controls the internet anyway, they can prevent ad blocking extensions on Chrome and Android. This violates "don't be evil", but that's long gone by the wayside anyway and this is survival we're talking
3) Google ("Alphabet") becomes a robot car / cryogenics / whatever company and doesn't need to protect the ad revenues and the internet is changed forever
The true game changer would be is Apple has ad blocking enabled BY DEFAULT in Safari on iOS. Once that happens...the clock starts ticking.
posted by pravit at 7:56 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Most people these days browse on mobile - I mean a lot of people my age (mid-late 20's) don't even have a laptop at home, just phones or tablets - and so for now that way of adblocking is safe. And of course, tons of people just don't know or care about ad blocking. Of course, the iOS adblocker will be a game changer if it is true.
My guess is
1) Google will pay off all the ad blockers (they already do this now to a limited extent) and/or pay off Apple to outlaw the adblocking programs from the App Store
2) Since Google basically controls the internet anyway, they can prevent ad blocking extensions on Chrome and Android. This violates "don't be evil", but that's long gone by the wayside anyway and this is survival we're talking
3) Google ("Alphabet") becomes a robot car / cryogenics / whatever company and doesn't need to protect the ad revenues and the internet is changed forever
The true game changer would be is Apple has ad blocking enabled BY DEFAULT in Safari on iOS. Once that happens...the clock starts ticking.
posted by pravit at 7:56 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
In all earnestness, I'd had no idea how bad the situation had gotten because I've been living in Japan for years, and through a combination of the trashier stuff targeting an English-speaking audience and having Adfreetime set up on all of my internet-accessing devices so I could use American Netflix, I hadn't even realized just how much using the web in general in America feels like a nonstop parade of daytime TV commercials
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:57 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:57 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm a content creator on the web and adblock has blocked much of the ads that supposedly pay my bills and allow me to eat for a very very long time. In fact, the job I had last year had what I believe is a record-breaking 85% adoption rate for adblock among our users. (enthusiasts for that type of content are typically the kind of people who not only know of but approve of adblock.)
generally speaking, I (and the companies I work for) tend to find other revenue models than relying on display ads and video ads that are blockable by adblock. Sure, plenty of people in various industries are talking about preventing adblock from being effective, but that's because display ads are free money, and who the hell doesn't want free money? All you have to do is annoy your audience without actively driving them away. But in the meantime we're doing fine, thanks.
I don't have sympathy for content creators who believe that adblock is ruining their ability to eat. If you can only think of one way to monetize what you do, and that way is advertising no one wants to see, then that's your fault. The rest of us are doing fine. Don't pretend to speak for us.
for what it's worth, I use adblock myself and I whitepage sites I care deeply about, mostly out of sympathy. But I honestly and completely do not care if the sites I block (and that's the majority of them) stop existing. Remember that if you're worried that adblock is going to drive you out of business. It might just be because your audience really doesn't care enough about your content to keep you afloat, and your real problem might be how unimportant your content really is to people.
posted by shmegegge at 7:59 PM on September 14, 2015 [28 favorites]
generally speaking, I (and the companies I work for) tend to find other revenue models than relying on display ads and video ads that are blockable by adblock. Sure, plenty of people in various industries are talking about preventing adblock from being effective, but that's because display ads are free money, and who the hell doesn't want free money? All you have to do is annoy your audience without actively driving them away. But in the meantime we're doing fine, thanks.
I don't have sympathy for content creators who believe that adblock is ruining their ability to eat. If you can only think of one way to monetize what you do, and that way is advertising no one wants to see, then that's your fault. The rest of us are doing fine. Don't pretend to speak for us.
for what it's worth, I use adblock myself and I whitepage sites I care deeply about, mostly out of sympathy. But I honestly and completely do not care if the sites I block (and that's the majority of them) stop existing. Remember that if you're worried that adblock is going to drive you out of business. It might just be because your audience really doesn't care enough about your content to keep you afloat, and your real problem might be how unimportant your content really is to people.
posted by shmegegge at 7:59 PM on September 14, 2015 [28 favorites]
pravit, I will bet you literally any amount you are comfortable losing that Apple is not going to take a payoff from Google to prohibit ad blockers from the app store, given that "content blockers" is one of the big features of iOS 9 (and leaving aside the fact that Apple, as arguably the biggest company in the world, is going to regard literally any amount offered to them to undermine the consumer privacy advocacy they're so often beating the drum on as being a rounding error not even worth caring about).
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:59 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:59 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
I pay Google $5 a month to turn ads into cats.
Please go on.
posted by davidjmcgee at 8:02 PM on September 14, 2015 [14 favorites]
Please go on.
posted by davidjmcgee at 8:02 PM on September 14, 2015 [14 favorites]
maybe a print analogy to online advertising circa 2015 would be if every full-page ad in the newspaper were printed with ink that would smear all over your hands and clothes and smelled really bad.
Like last month's Bon Appetit magazine. It had some really interesting recipes but the Calvin Klein insert gave me a splitting headache every time I opened the magazine even a week after I ripped it out and threw it in the garbage (and had to then take the garbage out).
So yeah I ad block even in the real world and even if it costs me content I have paid for.
posted by srboisvert at 8:03 PM on September 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
Like last month's Bon Appetit magazine. It had some really interesting recipes but the Calvin Klein insert gave me a splitting headache every time I opened the magazine even a week after I ripped it out and threw it in the garbage (and had to then take the garbage out).
So yeah I ad block even in the real world and even if it costs me content I have paid for.
posted by srboisvert at 8:03 PM on September 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
Apple is not going to take a payoff from Google to prohibit ad blockers from the app store,
Good point. If this iOS adblocking thing really takes off then...idk? This entire ecosystem of "just make some free app/website, get users, eventually figure out how to make money from them by advertising" just disappears. Maybe that will prick the Silicon Valley bubble. Or maybe I'm just being Chicken Little and people won't even bother downloading the ad blocker because people are lazy/don't know about it. I mean installing AdBlock on Chrome is literally two clicks, yet most people have no clue it even exists. Still seems like a pretty bad tail to be short.
posted by pravit at 8:07 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Good point. If this iOS adblocking thing really takes off then...idk? This entire ecosystem of "just make some free app/website, get users, eventually figure out how to make money from them by advertising" just disappears. Maybe that will prick the Silicon Valley bubble. Or maybe I'm just being Chicken Little and people won't even bother downloading the ad blocker because people are lazy/don't know about it. I mean installing AdBlock on Chrome is literally two clicks, yet most people have no clue it even exists. Still seems like a pretty bad tail to be short.
posted by pravit at 8:07 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Please go on.
Google Contributor. Basically Google's attempt at making micropayments work.
posted by jedicus at 8:12 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
Google Contributor. Basically Google's attempt at making micropayments work.
posted by jedicus at 8:12 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
Don't pee during the commercials, you're taking food out of the actors families mouths. Wait, that sounds kinda .... weird. Not to mention who watches live TV anyway? (Or TV at all around here...)
The ads have slammed our bandwidth, slowed sites to a crawl, used to deliver malware and done their best to get in our face, and tracked our lives far beyond what people realize.
Responsible sites will start serving their own ads and be more careful about what the ads are, and how they intrude.
posted by Bovine Love at 8:17 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
The ads have slammed our bandwidth, slowed sites to a crawl, used to deliver malware and done their best to get in our face, and tracked our lives far beyond what people realize.
Responsible sites will start serving their own ads and be more careful about what the ads are, and how they intrude.
posted by Bovine Love at 8:17 PM on September 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
Let's talk about bandwidth charges, actually.
I spend a lot of time without wifi, and on Verizon a GB on LTE costs you about $10-$25. So when I click that link, I think about whether I want to spend 2 to 10 cents to read that article with all of its trackers and ads. If I'm just idly clicking around Twitter, I might skip it. Or I might put the URL into Opera Mini to see if it's worth checking out. Video? Fugeddaboutit.
Just saying, if there was a little $meter at the top of everyone's mobile browser, web sites might trim back on some of the bloat and trackers.
But here I am making apps that depend on ad revenue and video ads so I'm really the OpenGL teapot calling the kettle #000000. We're all horrible people on the take.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:23 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
I spend a lot of time without wifi, and on Verizon a GB on LTE costs you about $10-$25. So when I click that link, I think about whether I want to spend 2 to 10 cents to read that article with all of its trackers and ads. If I'm just idly clicking around Twitter, I might skip it. Or I might put the URL into Opera Mini to see if it's worth checking out. Video? Fugeddaboutit.
Just saying, if there was a little $meter at the top of everyone's mobile browser, web sites might trim back on some of the bloat and trackers.
But here I am making apps that depend on ad revenue and video ads so I'm really the OpenGL teapot calling the kettle #000000. We're all horrible people on the take.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:23 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Bovine Love: "Not to mention who watches live TV anyway?"
Sports are pretty much the last redoubt of live TV.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:27 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sports are pretty much the last redoubt of live TV.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:27 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's an interesting experiment to visualise what your life would be if like if you spent zero time on any online resource that is dependent on selling ad space. Try it: don't let Adblock or Ghostery strip out page elements - just hit back when you see they've done anything.
It turns out you don't need all this shit. I feel like I did when we got rid of the TV.
posted by cromagnon at 8:27 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
It turns out you don't need all this shit. I feel like I did when we got rid of the TV.
posted by cromagnon at 8:27 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
A content provider closes up shop because they can't make a sufficient value offering? Then I'll find another content provider. They won't ALL close. I'll eventually find someone that is smart enough to provide quality AND make a profit.
This is called "capitalism."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:28 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is called "capitalism."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:28 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Revenue via free content with ads is a pre-internet, broadcast model, and has been problematic since the inception of the web; it's anachronistic and a bad fit besides. Content creators (as commented above) can and are figuring internet-native ways to monetize content.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:31 PM on September 14, 2015
posted by LooseFilter at 8:31 PM on September 14, 2015
Pravit, come to think of it, I wonder how iAd as a system will pan out, especially if content blockers and the News app get some traction. It seems on its surface to be Apple's attempt to reinvent online advertising with more of a TV-style dynamic, with vetting at all and no tracking of individuals. With any luck it may prove to be a means of advertising that doesn't demonstrate a complete lack of respect for the audience. With no luck, it'll remain kind of indifferently neglected like it's been for the past couple of years already.
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:33 PM on September 14, 2015
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:33 PM on September 14, 2015
I don't own a TV, but I wanted to see Colbert's first Late Show broadcast. I pay for ten gigs per month, so watching that show was a significant portion of my data allocation.
CBS refused to show me the video unless I turned off Adblock. Okay, I did that just for CBS programs, and I got to watch the show. This was the first time I have been exposed to mass-media advertising in the last ten years. It's unpleasant to watch advertising aimed at people decades younger than myself, but Colbert was great and the experience was worth the effort of ignoring the ads.
posted by Agave at 8:35 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
CBS refused to show me the video unless I turned off Adblock. Okay, I did that just for CBS programs, and I got to watch the show. This was the first time I have been exposed to mass-media advertising in the last ten years. It's unpleasant to watch advertising aimed at people decades younger than myself, but Colbert was great and the experience was worth the effort of ignoring the ads.
posted by Agave at 8:35 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
I ended up making myself curious about my own browsing habits, so I just went back through a week of my browsing history on Chrome on both desktop and mobile and looked for sites I visited for current events, sports, business or entertainment news.
Here, without any consideration for the number of hits on each site (but man, I read The Atlantic way more than I would have imagined) is the list:
Sydney Morning Herald
Jezebel
AVclub newswire
HuffPo
Slate
Techcrunch
Reuters
Guardian
Washington Post
Canada.com
WNY Papers
Mirror
Vox
Atlantic
Chronicle
CTV
NYTimes
ABC 7 NY
NPR
Forbes
Al Jazeera
Indian Country Today Media Network
Daily Mail
Raw Story
NBC News
Kansas City Star
Bloomberg.com
Today Show
Inside Higher Ed
CBC
Global News
New Yorker
Toronto Star
Prince George Citizen
Chicago Sun Times
Radio New Zealand
SportsNet
Hindustan Times
The Stranger
Cleveland Scene
Deadspin
Blog TO
42 different news sites. And I've been pretty busy with classes starting back up, so this is a *light* week of web browsing for me. There's just no way single-site subscription is viable to pay for my reading habits. And since well over half of those visits look rather like they came from MetaFilter based on how they sit in my history, I'd guess it's not viable for most of you, either.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:38 PM on September 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
Here, without any consideration for the number of hits on each site (but man, I read The Atlantic way more than I would have imagined) is the list:
Sydney Morning Herald
Jezebel
AVclub newswire
HuffPo
Slate
Techcrunch
Reuters
Guardian
Washington Post
Canada.com
WNY Papers
Mirror
Vox
Atlantic
Chronicle
CTV
NYTimes
ABC 7 NY
NPR
Forbes
Al Jazeera
Indian Country Today Media Network
Daily Mail
Raw Story
NBC News
Kansas City Star
Bloomberg.com
Today Show
Inside Higher Ed
CBC
Global News
New Yorker
Toronto Star
Prince George Citizen
Chicago Sun Times
Radio New Zealand
SportsNet
Hindustan Times
The Stranger
Cleveland Scene
Deadspin
Blog TO
42 different news sites. And I've been pretty busy with classes starting back up, so this is a *light* week of web browsing for me. There's just no way single-site subscription is viable to pay for my reading habits. And since well over half of those visits look rather like they came from MetaFilter based on how they sit in my history, I'd guess it's not viable for most of you, either.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:38 PM on September 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
The consensus among advertisers is that "the customer is always right." It takes real effort to block ads (iOS merely allows you to install ad blockers) so there is something really wrong with your advertising if you are motivating people to spend five minutes to set up an ad blocker.
Besides, only 1% of viewers actually click on a banner ad anyway.
Ad blocking is regarded by the industry as a challenge to create ads that will actually, heaven forbid, engage with their audience.
Content blocking is a good thing.
posted by Nevin at 8:40 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Besides, only 1% of viewers actually click on a banner ad anyway.
Ad blocking is regarded by the industry as a challenge to create ads that will actually, heaven forbid, engage with their audience.
Content blocking is a good thing.
posted by Nevin at 8:40 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
This was the first time I have been exposed to mass-media advertising in the last ten years.
Yeah, we cut the cord years ago (I am stingy) so when we go to my parents' house (or watch a movie in the theater) the ads are pretty weird.
posted by Nevin at 8:41 PM on September 14, 2015
Yeah, we cut the cord years ago (I am stingy) so when we go to my parents' house (or watch a movie in the theater) the ads are pretty weird.
posted by Nevin at 8:41 PM on September 14, 2015
DoctorFedora -- iAd revenue in 2014 was about .3% of Apple's total revenue, about $490 million. To put that number in perspective that's less than 1.5 days of revenue from iPhone sales. It's like a person making $50k/year taking a $12.50/month paycut.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:45 PM on September 14, 2015
posted by nathan_teske at 8:45 PM on September 14, 2015
Nathan, not really sure how that's relevant to what I said! Mostly, I just sort of wonder if they're aiming to make it an ad network for developers that doesn't require them to first implicitly renounce their humanity.
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:58 PM on September 14, 2015
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:58 PM on September 14, 2015
There is another distinction between print-ads and web-ads... The content.
When you buy a magazine, there are literally human beings that say 'yeah, okay, we'll associate our brand of magazine with this advert'. As there is a human being involved with that decision, it's very apparent that endorsement works two ways - Ford is endorsing Vanity Fair (or whatever) AND Vanity Fair is saying 'yeah, we approve to some level of Ford as a company and are willing to be associated with them'.
But imagine going to the toy store, and buying a game of Scrabble, and the game is 90% off (or free), but then there are advertisements in it... Okay, whatever, seems like a fair deal. But then those advertisements contained in you're free box are for human trafficcing. Well, that's obviously not a good deal, turns you off to the brand Hasbro forever, and they should be responsible for what they are advertising, right?
Anyways, this is a long way to bitch about how "Words with Friends" showed me some advert yesterday trying to convince me that a specific ethnicity of women were interested in me (I'm not sure, nor did I investigate what sort of commerce was behind that ad). Hasbro makes the actual "Word with Friends" board game, so their brand is sullied as well (as far as I'm concerned).
I guess I'm saying until web sites are willing to take full responsibility for the ads on their site (including malware, but also things like human trafficking or whatever grossness was behind that ad) then they can fuck the right off, the lot of them.
web sites hosting their own ads don't bother me and can certainly solve this problem.
posted by el io at 9:10 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
When you buy a magazine, there are literally human beings that say 'yeah, okay, we'll associate our brand of magazine with this advert'. As there is a human being involved with that decision, it's very apparent that endorsement works two ways - Ford is endorsing Vanity Fair (or whatever) AND Vanity Fair is saying 'yeah, we approve to some level of Ford as a company and are willing to be associated with them'.
But imagine going to the toy store, and buying a game of Scrabble, and the game is 90% off (or free), but then there are advertisements in it... Okay, whatever, seems like a fair deal. But then those advertisements contained in you're free box are for human trafficcing. Well, that's obviously not a good deal, turns you off to the brand Hasbro forever, and they should be responsible for what they are advertising, right?
Anyways, this is a long way to bitch about how "Words with Friends" showed me some advert yesterday trying to convince me that a specific ethnicity of women were interested in me (I'm not sure, nor did I investigate what sort of commerce was behind that ad). Hasbro makes the actual "Word with Friends" board game, so their brand is sullied as well (as far as I'm concerned).
I guess I'm saying until web sites are willing to take full responsibility for the ads on their site (including malware, but also things like human trafficking or whatever grossness was behind that ad) then they can fuck the right off, the lot of them.
web sites hosting their own ads don't bother me and can certainly solve this problem.
posted by el io at 9:10 PM on September 14, 2015 [12 favorites]
I would be so happy if websites had "pay to see" micropayment buttons instead of ads. Click button, pay 10 cents, read article, feel good about yourself. Or a similar donation button at the end of an article. It's a shame this would be nearly impossible to implement in an open, webby kind of way due to privacy and fraud concerns.
posted by archagon at 10:28 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by archagon at 10:28 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
pravit, I will bet you literally any amount you are comfortable losing that Apple is not going to take a payoff from Google to prohibit ad blockers from the app store, given that "content blockers" is one of the big features of iOS 9 (and leaving aside the fact that Apple, as arguably the biggest company in the world, is going to regard literally any amount offered to them to undermine the consumer privacy advocacy they're so often beating the drum on as being a rounding error not even worth caring about).
Not only that, but smart people work there. Really smart people.
Someones already done some kind of math of how much more market share "Our system blocks ads" is likely to bring in, and i bet that like the popularity of the ipad, they have no idea.
My parents, and random other older people i interact with often have mentioned in passing that the adblocker is a coming feature. I'm surprised at how many people already know about it, but people are stoked. Some were confused and thought they needed to buy the newest iphone to get it and were still totally game.
"Our system unruins pages!" is a gigantic selling point and i bet they already have TV commercials cued up with that bit in them.
I'd pay a subscription to someone who would dole it out based on where I visit, but I don't want a separate subscription to every site I've ever come across a link to.
I think this model is the solution, but i also fear it turning in to a nightmare of rentiership where only big well known sites get a decent rate, and they skim a whole bunch off the top. Or you know, some kind of bullshit like that. It's just too easy to imagine.
posted by emptythought at 10:33 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Not only that, but smart people work there. Really smart people.
Someones already done some kind of math of how much more market share "Our system blocks ads" is likely to bring in, and i bet that like the popularity of the ipad, they have no idea.
My parents, and random other older people i interact with often have mentioned in passing that the adblocker is a coming feature. I'm surprised at how many people already know about it, but people are stoked. Some were confused and thought they needed to buy the newest iphone to get it and were still totally game.
"Our system unruins pages!" is a gigantic selling point and i bet they already have TV commercials cued up with that bit in them.
I'd pay a subscription to someone who would dole it out based on where I visit, but I don't want a separate subscription to every site I've ever come across a link to.
I think this model is the solution, but i also fear it turning in to a nightmare of rentiership where only big well known sites get a decent rate, and they skim a whole bunch off the top. Or you know, some kind of bullshit like that. It's just too easy to imagine.
posted by emptythought at 10:33 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Advertising, with rare exceptions, is pretty evil. Blocking it is morally good.
until web sites are willing to take full responsibility for the ads on their site
I totally agree. I've also worked on that end of it, and find it's almost unfeasible to police (e.g. offenders clean up malware only to replace when you turn your back, etc.) and no one wants to turn down money. (That last one would be a bigger problem than just internet advertising.)
The fact that I don't get their ads means they have more money to pay people, not less.
That is an interesting argument. We are saving advertisers money b/c we're not susceptible to their advertising (saving those click dollars for users deemed more susceptible). ... Not sure I buy it. You're probably more influenced than you realize. (Do you ever drink Coca-Cola, the most evil beverage in the history of the world?)
...
It's all click fraud anyway, imo. CLICK FRAUD!
posted by mrgrimm at 10:43 PM on September 14, 2015
until web sites are willing to take full responsibility for the ads on their site
I totally agree. I've also worked on that end of it, and find it's almost unfeasible to police (e.g. offenders clean up malware only to replace when you turn your back, etc.) and no one wants to turn down money. (That last one would be a bigger problem than just internet advertising.)
The fact that I don't get their ads means they have more money to pay people, not less.
That is an interesting argument. We are saving advertisers money b/c we're not susceptible to their advertising (saving those click dollars for users deemed more susceptible). ... Not sure I buy it. You're probably more influenced than you realize. (Do you ever drink Coca-Cola, the most evil beverage in the history of the world?)
...
It's all click fraud anyway, imo. CLICK FRAUD!
posted by mrgrimm at 10:43 PM on September 14, 2015
I often wonder the effect that missing commercials will have on the millennial and post-millennial generations. It can only be a good. Perhaps we (the X/Y generations) sat idly by and let our elders lead us into planetary destruction because we spent too much of our childhood (and adulthood) watching fucking TV commercials.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:45 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by mrgrimm at 10:45 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Elderly people are so shit scared of clicking on the wrong link, they will pay a few hundred dollars extra for an Ipad where you don't have to worry about it. This will be a fun fight to watch -- Google/Facebook is hooked on ad money to fund everything while Apple can rake in money from hardware sales and wait for the other two to starve. If free content sites go away, there is always paid iTunes content in our walled garden, naturally, with a small cut for Apple.
posted by benzenedream at 10:54 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by benzenedream at 10:54 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Elderly people are so shit scared of clicking on the wrong link...
Metatalk thread.
I'M so scared on clicking the wrong link. Seriously.
posted by el io at 11:07 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Metatalk thread.
I'M so scared on clicking the wrong link. Seriously.
posted by el io at 11:07 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Mobile?
posted by carping demon at 11:17 PM on September 14, 2015
posted by carping demon at 11:17 PM on September 14, 2015
Coca-Cola, the most evil beverage in the history of the world
I don't think Coke's had enough time, historically speaking, to catch up with coffee in that regard. Or have coffee growers always been respected, honored, and fairly compensated?
posted by Earthtopus at 11:37 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
I don't think Coke's had enough time, historically speaking, to catch up with coffee in that regard. Or have coffee growers always been respected, honored, and fairly compensated?
posted by Earthtopus at 11:37 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Apple's embrace of ad blocking is a massive shot across the bow of advertisers everywhere.
I can barely browse sites now on my phone without inadvertently opening an ad in another tab. It takes a long time to load pages on what was once a fast connection, and I'm downloading huge amounts of images and video I don't want for which I am also paying the cellular company to deliver to me.
I think content creators should get paid, but it is not hyperbole to say that I'm getting to the point with commercial sites — sites I pay to browse, like the NYTimes — where my web browser is often unusable for 20-30 seconds while all the ads load, I have to be extremely careful scrolling past ads so that I don't accidentally open them, and parasitic advertisers are free-loading off my network connection.
My patience is at an end for advertisers and I'm glad Apple is on board with fixes that will cut the bad actors off at the knees.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:39 PM on September 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
I can barely browse sites now on my phone without inadvertently opening an ad in another tab. It takes a long time to load pages on what was once a fast connection, and I'm downloading huge amounts of images and video I don't want for which I am also paying the cellular company to deliver to me.
I think content creators should get paid, but it is not hyperbole to say that I'm getting to the point with commercial sites — sites I pay to browse, like the NYTimes — where my web browser is often unusable for 20-30 seconds while all the ads load, I have to be extremely careful scrolling past ads so that I don't accidentally open them, and parasitic advertisers are free-loading off my network connection.
My patience is at an end for advertisers and I'm glad Apple is on board with fixes that will cut the bad actors off at the knees.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:39 PM on September 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
I mean, and that's not even bringing [insert alocholic beverage here] into the "evil" discussion...
posted by Earthtopus at 11:40 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Earthtopus at 11:40 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't feel bad about blocking most ads because would have never bought anything from 99.99999+% of the ads that I block. I've literally bought one thing ever from an internet ad on a website (some notebooks from Field Notes via the deck here on metafilter. They were nice.) I don't feel bad about depriving them of my time and attention when I'm not going to give them my money anyway. Let them concentrate their efforts on fools who actually care what the "one weird trick" is.
posted by double block and bleed at 12:09 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by double block and bleed at 12:09 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
There is absolutely no reason that ads couldn't be sold by sending the images to the host, the host puts them on a server and hosts them locally, the end.
But it's not about the ads, it's about tracking, so every single network gets its own special JS library or ten that serves the ads and tries to figure out who you are and where you're going. And another library, and another, to overcome the shortcomings of the first dozen. Because the marketing people believe that because it's possible to track a single person and advertise directly, and by golly they are going to burn the network down trying to do so. It may be they're hyped because this is the first time that they are actually able to track online spending in such a specific way. (After all, most advertising is useless, just which percentage is up for debate.)
Unfortunately, just because you CAN do something, it doesn't follow that you SHOULD. For more on this topic, see most of human history.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:24 AM on September 15, 2015 [8 favorites]
But it's not about the ads, it's about tracking, so every single network gets its own special JS library or ten that serves the ads and tries to figure out who you are and where you're going. And another library, and another, to overcome the shortcomings of the first dozen. Because the marketing people believe that because it's possible to track a single person and advertise directly, and by golly they are going to burn the network down trying to do so. It may be they're hyped because this is the first time that they are actually able to track online spending in such a specific way. (After all, most advertising is useless, just which percentage is up for debate.)
Unfortunately, just because you CAN do something, it doesn't follow that you SHOULD. For more on this topic, see most of human history.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:24 AM on September 15, 2015 [8 favorites]
The Deck can stay, so far as I'm concerned. They have taste. Whatever trashy ad company it is that was serving up disturbing mugshots (eeeuuuughhhhhhhh jibbly jibbly jibbly) can rot in a fire in hell for all I care.
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:25 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:25 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
"this computer user found one weird trick for making her web browsing experience faster and more pleasant! MARKETERS HATE HER"
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:26 AM on September 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:26 AM on September 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
Also, if you are on Android, download Firefox and check out the Adblock Plus plugin. It's made our Android devices usable again.
posted by benzenedream at 12:30 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by benzenedream at 12:30 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also quit tricking me into not closing the god damned X aargh.
I think that's got to be what's behind at least half of that 1% of clicks Nevin mentioned.
Really - what is the logic behind this method of advertising? If it's for branding, I'd think it would have a counterproductive effect. If it's to facilitate actual purchases directly, it doesn't seem like it's working. It's just pollution. Worse, it steals bandwidth (users' actual money) and of course privacy. If anything, content producers need to be paying us.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:31 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think that's got to be what's behind at least half of that 1% of clicks Nevin mentioned.
Really - what is the logic behind this method of advertising? If it's for branding, I'd think it would have a counterproductive effect. If it's to facilitate actual purchases directly, it doesn't seem like it's working. It's just pollution. Worse, it steals bandwidth (users' actual money) and of course privacy. If anything, content producers need to be paying us.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:31 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
maybe a print analogy to online advertising circa 2015 would be if every full-page ad in the newspaper were printed with ink that would smear all over your hands and clothes and smelled really bad.
You open the paper to check the contents for where the Finance section is. You're almost fooled by two different ads which look like contents tables but actually just direct you to pages with ads. There's a flap of paper stuck to the top of the first page asking you to fill in a survey that keeps flopping down over the page you're trying to read. When you finally find the article you want to read, the text is interspersed (click here for cheap iPads!) with distracting, annoying (make money working from home!) ad text mixed in with (!!iPhone bargains!!) the article (subscribe now to save £££) text.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:45 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
You open the paper to check the contents for where the Finance section is. You're almost fooled by two different ads which look like contents tables but actually just direct you to pages with ads. There's a flap of paper stuck to the top of the first page asking you to fill in a survey that keeps flopping down over the page you're trying to read. When you finally find the article you want to read, the text is interspersed (click here for cheap iPads!) with distracting, annoying (make money working from home!) ad text mixed in with (!!iPhone bargains!!) the article (subscribe now to save £££) text.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:45 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also, if you are on Android, download Firefox and check out the Adblock Plus plugin.
I would, but Google Play won't work because I have background data switched off.
Curses, foiled again.
Or, I'm foiling someone else.
posted by Mezentian at 3:52 AM on September 15, 2015
I would, but Google Play won't work because I have background data switched off.
Curses, foiled again.
Or, I'm foiling someone else.
posted by Mezentian at 3:52 AM on September 15, 2015
I would not use an adblocker if the ads were like the ads here. But the popup video ads that are impossible to close? I'm blocking the shit out of the web once I can with iOS. Except MF, of course :)
posted by persona au gratin at 4:01 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by persona au gratin at 4:01 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Someone needs to make an Amazonish one-click to give 10c to read this article. If this were an option, places like the NYT would get much more money than it gets from me now ($0).
posted by persona au gratin at 4:14 AM on September 15, 2015
posted by persona au gratin at 4:14 AM on September 15, 2015
Someone needs to make an Amazonish one-click to give 10c to read this article.
I'm not sure.
I'm not an expert, but I believe the psychology of anything (advertising too), is that you don't want barriers between people and Thing A.
If I had to pay 10c to read an article, I'd rethink if I wanted to part with even a token amount, and I could be a lost 'sale'.
posted by Mezentian at 4:18 AM on September 15, 2015
I'm not sure.
I'm not an expert, but I believe the psychology of anything (advertising too), is that you don't want barriers between people and Thing A.
If I had to pay 10c to read an article, I'd rethink if I wanted to part with even a token amount, and I could be a lost 'sale'.
posted by Mezentian at 4:18 AM on September 15, 2015
What if I use the Internet to communicate with friends, instead of with brands? I appreciate that there are people using Facebook to "friend" the Tide Subdivision of Clorox, Inc. or whatever, but I started setting up hosts on this network in the early 1990s to effectively host parties and invite my friends over. Sometimes they returned the favour, and that was fun too!
I never wanted this ad-supported Internet. I started out in the 1980s, when commercial advertising was against the NSFNet rules. I know it was a demographic mess back then, and I'm not advocating it was a pure golden age or anything. Lots of things sucked! But my goals come from that era.
To take this into the present, I feel like so many of the amazing things going on on today's Internet are less about the New York Times and more about Vine and tumblr and twitter. I get to see quick glimpses of people having conversations within groups I'd never have had access to, and they get to represent themselves on their own terms.
So how do we host these people in some other way? I don't believe that the Imminent Death of the Net is here, but I worry that the NYT will survive this adblockalypse, and the tools that give disadvantaged groups the chance to be heard will crumble and fall. Or worse, they'll cement over the people they helped the most in order to climb to the top of the hideous tech pig-pile.
I want to look for good ways to build an equitable future on-line and off. But the message of "You can't do that! That's against our business model!" always makes me want to get out the sledgehammers.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:36 AM on September 15, 2015 [12 favorites]
I never wanted this ad-supported Internet. I started out in the 1980s, when commercial advertising was against the NSFNet rules. I know it was a demographic mess back then, and I'm not advocating it was a pure golden age or anything. Lots of things sucked! But my goals come from that era.
To take this into the present, I feel like so many of the amazing things going on on today's Internet are less about the New York Times and more about Vine and tumblr and twitter. I get to see quick glimpses of people having conversations within groups I'd never have had access to, and they get to represent themselves on their own terms.
So how do we host these people in some other way? I don't believe that the Imminent Death of the Net is here, but I worry that the NYT will survive this adblockalypse, and the tools that give disadvantaged groups the chance to be heard will crumble and fall. Or worse, they'll cement over the people they helped the most in order to climb to the top of the hideous tech pig-pile.
I want to look for good ways to build an equitable future on-line and off. But the message of "You can't do that! That's against our business model!" always makes me want to get out the sledgehammers.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:36 AM on September 15, 2015 [12 favorites]
Oh yes, and I see that the old micropayments chestnut is out in the sun again.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:37 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:37 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
To take this into the present, I feel like so many of the amazing things going on on today's Internet are less about the New York Times and more about Vine and tumblr and twitter.
To quote Mark Scott, who runs the ABC:
“We may have plenty to read and watch as audience members, but is it the kind of content that makes us informed citizens; that reveals what some people want concealed; that holds the powerful to account? That helps Australians understand each other better and the world in which we live?”
posted by Mezentian at 4:50 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
To quote Mark Scott, who runs the ABC:
“We may have plenty to read and watch as audience members, but is it the kind of content that makes us informed citizens; that reveals what some people want concealed; that holds the powerful to account? That helps Australians understand each other better and the world in which we live?”
posted by Mezentian at 4:50 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
All I know is, no one ever got a virus from a TV or magazine ad.
posted by ymgve at 5:46 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ymgve at 5:46 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Would it be possible for news websites to allow their content to be linked so that non-subscribers could see one article with advertising but then stop them from navigating within the news website with a message saying - Subscribers don't see (annoying) adverts and can browse the whole site? That would mean that only subscribers (or staff) could start a 'viral' linking chain, but other than that the brand would still be capable of social media amplification.
The idea is to make people want to subscribe.
Then again, I have never understood why people would pay for television that then shows them adverts, so I am probably the wrong person to talk about advertising.
posted by asok at 5:59 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
The idea is to make people want to subscribe.
Then again, I have never understood why people would pay for television that then shows them adverts, so I am probably the wrong person to talk about advertising.
posted by asok at 5:59 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Apple's embrace of ad blocking is a massive shot across the bow of advertisers everywhere.
No, it's just part of a trend. For example Google now blocks Flash ads on the Chrome browser. This started on September 1st. Nobody has said much about it (HTML5 ads are still okay).
posted by Nevin at 7:35 AM on September 15, 2015
No, it's just part of a trend. For example Google now blocks Flash ads on the Chrome browser. This started on September 1st. Nobody has said much about it (HTML5 ads are still okay).
posted by Nevin at 7:35 AM on September 15, 2015
Instead of white-listing by site, I would love if AdBlock (or someone) would put together a list of white listed Ad Networks that follow some sort of decency rules. In the same way that adblock lets me white list google text ads in search results.*
I'm OK with advertising. I often find advertising useful. Just do it better. Don't steal all my bandwidth, and don't be annoying and obtrusive. There's some sites I would totally white-list if they didn't use particularly awful ad networks.
*Which I have turned on. Sometimes I purposefully click on them to send money from another big company, like Amazon, to Google.
posted by mayonnaises at 7:47 AM on September 15, 2015
I'm OK with advertising. I often find advertising useful. Just do it better. Don't steal all my bandwidth, and don't be annoying and obtrusive. There's some sites I would totally white-list if they didn't use particularly awful ad networks.
*Which I have turned on. Sometimes I purposefully click on them to send money from another big company, like Amazon, to Google.
posted by mayonnaises at 7:47 AM on September 15, 2015
The shite ads are mostly on sites who have sold the "space" to an ad broker or similar, and the site exercises little or no control over what the broker plops into that space. This is an abdication of responsibility on the site's part, and blocking these is fair game, in my opinion.
Awareness of the whole situation is useful, and I am making efforts to unblock the sites I frequent and get value from, like MeFi.
I think it's relatively easy for any site to detect whether an ad-blocker is in use, which allows the site to politely ask to be unblocked, or for a micropayment, or could detect the presence of some sort of subscription already in place. Or as discussed, sites could host the ads themselves (with some level of oversight).
So I don't see in-page ads going away or the end of internet publishing; I expect that people will figure out how to do it better, and alternate revenue mechanisms will also appear.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:07 AM on September 15, 2015
Awareness of the whole situation is useful, and I am making efforts to unblock the sites I frequent and get value from, like MeFi.
I think it's relatively easy for any site to detect whether an ad-blocker is in use, which allows the site to politely ask to be unblocked, or for a micropayment, or could detect the presence of some sort of subscription already in place. Or as discussed, sites could host the ads themselves (with some level of oversight).
So I don't see in-page ads going away or the end of internet publishing; I expect that people will figure out how to do it better, and alternate revenue mechanisms will also appear.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:07 AM on September 15, 2015
I've just been hearing yet another example of tracker evilness - agencies (in the UK at least) are buying small campaigns on high-end sites, correlating readership to much, much cheaper sites, telling the high-end sites that "The campaign failed, you didn't deliver, no more money for you" then moving all spend to the crap sites while telling their clients that they're getting the same demographics. And, needless to say, pocketing the delta.
Agencies have always been shitmongering bastards. The Internet has let them get really, really good at it.
We don't need micropayments or Prime-style exalted multi-site access schemes. We need advertising to work again.
As I've said before, I think one answer is a search engine that aggressively down-ranks ad-heavy,tracker-saturated, ad-network junky sites, coupled with publishers selling and self-hosting restrained advertising. It's not even a case of this cannibalising existing revenue streams, which are to a great extent not there anyway - someone else is getting all the money (and there is money, it's just going to agencies, networks and other host-endangering parasites).
The real problem is Google. which is after all an advertising company. It has failed in its primary consumer task, that of delivering useful content, because it has encouraged advertising to metastasise into something that can only grow as it chokes off its own life support.
The NYT could survive when it published three adverts on a page with ten articles. Now it can't surivve unless it puts ten ads on a single article. There's no feedback mechanism that lets any of us prefer the former system, but preference is absolutely the key to a sustainable, multi-tiered advertising model that allows high-end content (and presentation) to co-exist alongside the rest.
How do you pay for such a search engine? How do you get enough good content to make the users of that engine a strong signal to advertisers? I don't know. But answering these questions seems easier than any other approach, other than LET IT BURN, LET IT ALL BURN.
posted by Devonian at 8:09 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Agencies have always been shitmongering bastards. The Internet has let them get really, really good at it.
We don't need micropayments or Prime-style exalted multi-site access schemes. We need advertising to work again.
As I've said before, I think one answer is a search engine that aggressively down-ranks ad-heavy,tracker-saturated, ad-network junky sites, coupled with publishers selling and self-hosting restrained advertising. It's not even a case of this cannibalising existing revenue streams, which are to a great extent not there anyway - someone else is getting all the money (and there is money, it's just going to agencies, networks and other host-endangering parasites).
The real problem is Google. which is after all an advertising company. It has failed in its primary consumer task, that of delivering useful content, because it has encouraged advertising to metastasise into something that can only grow as it chokes off its own life support.
The NYT could survive when it published three adverts on a page with ten articles. Now it can't surivve unless it puts ten ads on a single article. There's no feedback mechanism that lets any of us prefer the former system, but preference is absolutely the key to a sustainable, multi-tiered advertising model that allows high-end content (and presentation) to co-exist alongside the rest.
How do you pay for such a search engine? How do you get enough good content to make the users of that engine a strong signal to advertisers? I don't know. But answering these questions seems easier than any other approach, other than LET IT BURN, LET IT ALL BURN.
posted by Devonian at 8:09 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
You're right, I don't want to pay for the internet. I want the internet that came from dial-up BBS culture; where people stood up services because they personally felt the need to do so; with the occasional gem of a site (like MeFi) earning token revenue.
I have never understood this desire to scale services up to billions of concurrent users. Let 'em eat busy signal; and your community is self-limiting.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 8:20 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have never understood this desire to scale services up to billions of concurrent users. Let 'em eat busy signal; and your community is self-limiting.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 8:20 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm ok with paying for the Internet. However, I don't want to make a conscious decision about paying 10 cents here and 10 cents there for an article.
What I'd like to see is an extension which lets me enter a monthly or weekly amount, and then distributes it automatically to all the sites I've visited. The money would be divided according to how many visits / activity I give to certain sites. I'd have the option to mark certain sites as getting nothing. That would ensure something like Breitbart isn't getting paid by me just because I followed a link exposing their latest attempt to fuel a hate mob. There could also be rules excluding shopping sites like Amazon, or anything in .gov, etc.
Another related option would be an add-on calculating how much money a site is expecting from my visit. This would be based on how many ads are blocked. And roughly how much those blocked ad networks would pay per ad. This could be compiled into weekly / monthly statistics which gives a good idea how much I should put into the "subscription" extension above.
posted by honestcoyote at 8:47 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
What I'd like to see is an extension which lets me enter a monthly or weekly amount, and then distributes it automatically to all the sites I've visited. The money would be divided according to how many visits / activity I give to certain sites. I'd have the option to mark certain sites as getting nothing. That would ensure something like Breitbart isn't getting paid by me just because I followed a link exposing their latest attempt to fuel a hate mob. There could also be rules excluding shopping sites like Amazon, or anything in .gov, etc.
Another related option would be an add-on calculating how much money a site is expecting from my visit. This would be based on how many ads are blocked. And roughly how much those blocked ad networks would pay per ad. This could be compiled into weekly / monthly statistics which gives a good idea how much I should put into the "subscription" extension above.
posted by honestcoyote at 8:47 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hm, can't click to mark a favorite without temporarily allowing something to connect to "d217i264rvtnq0.cloudfront.net" -- and who is that?
And if I give that random number at cloudfront.net permission to do something, will it still be the same person/business behind that URL next time? Can't trust that can I?
Well, temporarily allowing.
There. I was able to click the + to designate a favorite.
Who the hell are all these unidentifiable sites that have to be given permission before I can click a damn button around here?
Oh and about ads on the Internet: think trucks on the Interstate.
Yeah. The Interstate Highway is built to the specs of the heavy equipment used to haul the ICBMs that were the US retaliatory strike "mutually assured destruction" -- get them rapidly spread out across the country so they could be launched after the cities and military bases and storage depots were nuked. Look it up.
Somehow that need hasn't arisen yet and -- those lovely free highways are full of huge multi-trailer trucks.
Enjoy.
See the similarity? The Internet was built to survive as a distributed system that could be nuked full of holes and still pass information around. Yeah, back before everything went through a few sites to be filtered, NSA'd and 'oogled. And it's now clogged by all that inspection and filtering and advertising.
I swear, I miss FIDOnet sometimes. Let alone Usenet News with killfiles.
Yeah, it took a day or two to get a response to things .... but you had some assurance it was a human being on the other end of the conversation.
Hm. Maybe I should've drunk my coffee before typing ...
posted by hank at 9:00 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
And if I give that random number at cloudfront.net permission to do something, will it still be the same person/business behind that URL next time? Can't trust that can I?
Well, temporarily allowing.
There. I was able to click the + to designate a favorite.
Who the hell are all these unidentifiable sites that have to be given permission before I can click a damn button around here?
Oh and about ads on the Internet: think trucks on the Interstate.
Yeah. The Interstate Highway is built to the specs of the heavy equipment used to haul the ICBMs that were the US retaliatory strike "mutually assured destruction" -- get them rapidly spread out across the country so they could be launched after the cities and military bases and storage depots were nuked. Look it up.
Somehow that need hasn't arisen yet and -- those lovely free highways are full of huge multi-trailer trucks.
Enjoy.
See the similarity? The Internet was built to survive as a distributed system that could be nuked full of holes and still pass information around. Yeah, back before everything went through a few sites to be filtered, NSA'd and 'oogled. And it's now clogged by all that inspection and filtering and advertising.
I swear, I miss FIDOnet sometimes. Let alone Usenet News with killfiles.
Yeah, it took a day or two to get a response to things .... but you had some assurance it was a human being on the other end of the conversation.
Hm. Maybe I should've drunk my coffee before typing ...
posted by hank at 9:00 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
(The FAQ has a bit about favorites code; if folks want to know more, it will be a pb question and probably should go to MetaTalk.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:09 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:09 AM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Dear twitter: I will happily pay a reasonable monthly fee for an ad-free stream.
What, no? You want to sell me as the product? ugggggh
posted by Theta States at 9:15 AM on September 15, 2015
What, no? You want to sell me as the product? ugggggh
posted by Theta States at 9:15 AM on September 15, 2015
After years of using Adblock plus and Gmail, sometimes it's honestly surprising to be reminded there are such things as internet ads and spam.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:24 AM on September 15, 2015
posted by gottabefunky at 9:24 AM on September 15, 2015
"maybe a print analogy to online advertising circa 2015 would be if every full-page ad in the newspaper were printed with ink that would smear all over your hands and clothes and smelled really bad."
Oh, so you remember newspapers then!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:34 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oh, so you remember newspapers then!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:34 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
No, it's just part of a trend. For example Google now blocks Flash ads on the Chrome browser. This started on September 1st. Nobody has said much about it (HTML5 ads are still okay).
I'm not sure that's quite the same thing. The steady move to a fully deprecated Flash has as much to do with performance, battery life on mobile/notebooks, and security as it does that it's being used for ads. Flash is old and shitty (and basically abandoned), and is a major vector for problems of all sorts.
To be clear, I'm not an Apple fanboy (I've been an Android user for many years, with no plans to change). Nonetheless, what Apple is poised to do is very different from what Google has just recently done. Google is blocking a particularly troublesome technology, which will have the side effect of blocking some (but not all) ads. Apple, meanwhile, is positioning itself to bring technology-agnostic ad blocking to their large mobile platform that has up until now not really had it. That's going to widen the usage of ad blocking significantly.
posted by tocts at 10:08 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure that's quite the same thing. The steady move to a fully deprecated Flash has as much to do with performance, battery life on mobile/notebooks, and security as it does that it's being used for ads. Flash is old and shitty (and basically abandoned), and is a major vector for problems of all sorts.
To be clear, I'm not an Apple fanboy (I've been an Android user for many years, with no plans to change). Nonetheless, what Apple is poised to do is very different from what Google has just recently done. Google is blocking a particularly troublesome technology, which will have the side effect of blocking some (but not all) ads. Apple, meanwhile, is positioning itself to bring technology-agnostic ad blocking to their large mobile platform that has up until now not really had it. That's going to widen the usage of ad blocking significantly.
posted by tocts at 10:08 AM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
You're right, I don't want to pay for the internet. I want the internet that came from dial-up BBS culture; where people stood up services because they personally felt the need to do so; with the occasional gem of a site (like MeFi) earning token revenue.
I sympathize with this impulse, because I grew up with Usenet and the BBS. But it was elitist. Sure, you didn't know who you were talking to, but you knew that they were someone with a certain level of specialized knowledge and disposable income. There would never have been a #BlackLivesMatter movement, for one, on that kind of internet.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:22 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I sympathize with this impulse, because I grew up with Usenet and the BBS. But it was elitist. Sure, you didn't know who you were talking to, but you knew that they were someone with a certain level of specialized knowledge and disposable income. There would never have been a #BlackLivesMatter movement, for one, on that kind of internet.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:22 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit: "There is absolutely no reason that ads couldn't be sold by sending the images to the host, the host puts them on a server and hosts them locally, the end.
But it's not about the ads, it's about tracking, so every single network gets its own special JS library or ten that serves the ads and tries to figure out who you are and where you're going. And another library, and another, to overcome the shortcomings of the first dozen. Because the marketing people believe that because it's possible to track a single person and advertise directly, and by golly they are going to burn the network down trying to do so. It may be they're hyped because this is the first time that they are actually able to track online spending in such a specific way. (After all, most advertising is useless, just which percentage is up for debate.)
Unfortunately, just because you CAN do something, it doesn't follow that you SHOULD. For more on this topic, see most of human history."
Or, how about the ad networks that delay by some non-zero number of milliseconds so they can have an auction before they display the ad?
posted by Samizdata at 12:27 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
But it's not about the ads, it's about tracking, so every single network gets its own special JS library or ten that serves the ads and tries to figure out who you are and where you're going. And another library, and another, to overcome the shortcomings of the first dozen. Because the marketing people believe that because it's possible to track a single person and advertise directly, and by golly they are going to burn the network down trying to do so. It may be they're hyped because this is the first time that they are actually able to track online spending in such a specific way. (After all, most advertising is useless, just which percentage is up for debate.)
Unfortunately, just because you CAN do something, it doesn't follow that you SHOULD. For more on this topic, see most of human history."
Or, how about the ad networks that delay by some non-zero number of milliseconds so they can have an auction before they display the ad?
posted by Samizdata at 12:27 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't run any extensions that are specifically for ad-blocking, but I do block trackers. That seems to nuke most of the ads, as a side-effect. I'm not entirely certain whose problem that is, but I'm pretty sure it's not mine.
Of course I also don't use facebook or twitter, preferentially search for things on wikipedia instead of google where appropriate (and donate to wikipedia when they have fundraising drives), and pay cash-money to have my own physical server in a datacentre where I spool my own mail, host my own website and a couple of blogs, and even maintain an IRC server.
What's truly boggling is the amount of technical sophistication that I have to wield in order to decide to pay for my services with money, instead of with attention and data.
(And based on my occasional foray into facebook, paying for things with attention and data has a perceptible impact on my mood, which I *really* don't like, not to mention how much free time it eats. I'm almost convinced that the actual function of "social media" is to encourage people to argue on the internet, because fighting keeps people engaged for longer, providing more opportunity to advertise to them.)
posted by kiwano at 12:45 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Of course I also don't use facebook or twitter, preferentially search for things on wikipedia instead of google where appropriate (and donate to wikipedia when they have fundraising drives), and pay cash-money to have my own physical server in a datacentre where I spool my own mail, host my own website and a couple of blogs, and even maintain an IRC server.
What's truly boggling is the amount of technical sophistication that I have to wield in order to decide to pay for my services with money, instead of with attention and data.
(And based on my occasional foray into facebook, paying for things with attention and data has a perceptible impact on my mood, which I *really* don't like, not to mention how much free time it eats. I'm almost convinced that the actual function of "social media" is to encourage people to argue on the internet, because fighting keeps people engaged for longer, providing more opportunity to advertise to them.)
posted by kiwano at 12:45 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Nobody asked me whether I wanted to support a business model based on advertising, they just built the content and surrounded it with ads. I never agreed, and continue to not agree; there is no moral EULA that says that if I consume their content, I have agreed to their business model."
One could say the same thing about a business model in which waiters depend on tips to make a living. No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?
"I don't have sympathy for content creators who believe that adblock is ruining their ability to eat."
Does the argument apply to waiters? If not, it is a very weak argument that applies selectively to situations of your convenience.
If you disagree with the business model, the ethical policy would be to avoid restaurants if they have a tipping policy, not stiff the waiters. The ethical policy would be to avoid sites that have advertising, not block their ads.
The argument that you didn't sign a EULA is used as a convenient self-serving justification. There may be better arguments. This is a particularly weak one.
posted by JackFlash at 1:39 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
One could say the same thing about a business model in which waiters depend on tips to make a living. No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?
"I don't have sympathy for content creators who believe that adblock is ruining their ability to eat."
Does the argument apply to waiters? If not, it is a very weak argument that applies selectively to situations of your convenience.
If you disagree with the business model, the ethical policy would be to avoid restaurants if they have a tipping policy, not stiff the waiters. The ethical policy would be to avoid sites that have advertising, not block their ads.
The argument that you didn't sign a EULA is used as a convenient self-serving justification. There may be better arguments. This is a particularly weak one.
posted by JackFlash at 1:39 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Advertising has been so glaringly intrusive and utterly pervasive for my entire life; it conditioned my thinking in ways that have taken decades to identify and unlearn; it is very often inescapable. I do not think any pushback against this phenomenally intrusive practice, in all its forms, needs to meet an impeccable ethical standard. I am sick of being treated as a commodity, of being told that I'm a consumer and not a person, and that I don't have a right to not be advertised to.
Pushback on this practice, in all ways, is a human and cultural good.
posted by LooseFilter at 2:16 PM on September 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
Pushback on this practice, in all ways, is a human and cultural good.
posted by LooseFilter at 2:16 PM on September 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
What if I use the Internet to communicate with friends, instead of with brands?
I'm sure that you no longer purchase magazines (as much as you used to) or go to the library reading room to read magazines and newspaper. I used to do that.
Instead we "consume content" electronically, mostly for free. Something has to pay for that content. As we all know, print (newspaper and magazine) ad revenue has collapsed over the past 10-15 years. Google's ad revenues are about the same as all print advertising revenues circa 2007 (I think).
The trend towards *allowing* content blocking (iOS is not going to automatically block ads) poses a challenge to "brands" (jargon for anyone who sells anything, including the media).
posted by Nevin at 2:22 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm sure that you no longer purchase magazines (as much as you used to) or go to the library reading room to read magazines and newspaper. I used to do that.
Instead we "consume content" electronically, mostly for free. Something has to pay for that content. As we all know, print (newspaper and magazine) ad revenue has collapsed over the past 10-15 years. Google's ad revenues are about the same as all print advertising revenues circa 2007 (I think).
The trend towards *allowing* content blocking (iOS is not going to automatically block ads) poses a challenge to "brands" (jargon for anyone who sells anything, including the media).
posted by Nevin at 2:22 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Something has to pay for that content.
Obviously, but advertising is far from the only way for this to happen. We just haven't had much imagination beyond what kind of advertising works for a given medium, rather than considering that advertising as a practice and revenue model is simply incompatible with the internet as a medium.
I'm a musician, and it's pretty obvious that music-as-commodity was a brief time that has passed. It's very difficult to monetize music directly now (it not being a thing and all), so many musicians have been working very hard to figure out ways to monetize aspects of their work other than the music itself. Kind of crazy, but that's the world we live in: the same arc of technological development that allowed music to be made a physical commodity in the first place has now mostly eliminated that, and I don't see that changing in my lifetime.
I can sit here and rage against this change (even rightly), but nothing will reverse or undo it: music is no longer directly commodifiable. And since the internet is not going away, neither is that fact. I think advertising, as an entire conceptual practice and system of revenue, is being similarly undermined. Rage and fight if you want, but the smart money is looking for and exploring new ways to monetize content.
posted by LooseFilter at 2:53 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Obviously, but advertising is far from the only way for this to happen. We just haven't had much imagination beyond what kind of advertising works for a given medium, rather than considering that advertising as a practice and revenue model is simply incompatible with the internet as a medium.
I'm a musician, and it's pretty obvious that music-as-commodity was a brief time that has passed. It's very difficult to monetize music directly now (it not being a thing and all), so many musicians have been working very hard to figure out ways to monetize aspects of their work other than the music itself. Kind of crazy, but that's the world we live in: the same arc of technological development that allowed music to be made a physical commodity in the first place has now mostly eliminated that, and I don't see that changing in my lifetime.
I can sit here and rage against this change (even rightly), but nothing will reverse or undo it: music is no longer directly commodifiable. And since the internet is not going away, neither is that fact. I think advertising, as an entire conceptual practice and system of revenue, is being similarly undermined. Rage and fight if you want, but the smart money is looking for and exploring new ways to monetize content.
posted by LooseFilter at 2:53 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Waiters respond to ME - they are courteous and considerate and help me choose a meal and bring it in a timely manner - the ones who don't, who waste my time or push inappropriate choices at me... get stiffed. And they probably should choose a different career in that case.
Good advertising is complementary to the medium it appears in. Only in online advertising is it considered OK to sell ad space to ANYONE to advertise ANYTHING without regard to whether the ad is relevent to the user or the content.
Ad-blocking is a predictable response to an out-of-control internet advertising environment. As I mentioned previously, there are a number of ways in which content providers can encourage (or force) the acceptance of advertising on their site. I'm certain there's countless basements full of start-ups hoping to be the first to solve this.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:19 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Good advertising is complementary to the medium it appears in. Only in online advertising is it considered OK to sell ad space to ANYONE to advertise ANYTHING without regard to whether the ad is relevent to the user or the content.
Ad-blocking is a predictable response to an out-of-control internet advertising environment. As I mentioned previously, there are a number of ways in which content providers can encourage (or force) the acceptance of advertising on their site. I'm certain there's countless basements full of start-ups hoping to be the first to solve this.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:19 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Not only do I whitelist sites I actually like, I click on their ads. Not every one of them, but often enough. I've even bought things through those clicks.
But what turns me to blocking is not just ads but the incredibly gross, intrusive ones. The ones that start playing video with sound fifteen seconds after I open the page. The ones that start playing TWO videos with sound simultaneously. The ones that sometimes start playing video with sound HALF AN HOUR LATER when I'm in the other room. The giant splash screens that can't be closed. the incredibly offensive porn or malware stuff, or advertising guns on an article about someone who died of a gunshot (yes, really). And so on.
I've found that blocking Flash is more effective than adblockers, because Flash is always the best choice for the worst garbage.
posted by Fnarf at 4:32 PM on September 15, 2015
But what turns me to blocking is not just ads but the incredibly gross, intrusive ones. The ones that start playing video with sound fifteen seconds after I open the page. The ones that start playing TWO videos with sound simultaneously. The ones that sometimes start playing video with sound HALF AN HOUR LATER when I'm in the other room. The giant splash screens that can't be closed. the incredibly offensive porn or malware stuff, or advertising guns on an article about someone who died of a gunshot (yes, really). And so on.
I've found that blocking Flash is more effective than adblockers, because Flash is always the best choice for the worst garbage.
posted by Fnarf at 4:32 PM on September 15, 2015
One could say the same thing about a business model in which waiters depend on tips to make a living. No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?
"I don't have sympathy for content creators who believe that adblock is ruining their ability to eat."
Does the argument apply to waiters? If not, it is a very weak argument that applies selectively to situations of your convenience.
This is an absurd argument. For one thing we, as a culture, have always loudly proclaimed that not tipping your wait staff is morally repugnant. The same is nowhere near true of watching advertising. For another, tipping waiters is the result of a long-standing cultural problem of underpaying wait staff, and most employees of restaurants needing to make money off-the-books because they're paid so little that being taxed on top of it is insult after injury.
Your entire stance is sort of ridiculous.
posted by shmegegge at 5:19 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
"I don't have sympathy for content creators who believe that adblock is ruining their ability to eat."
Does the argument apply to waiters? If not, it is a very weak argument that applies selectively to situations of your convenience.
This is an absurd argument. For one thing we, as a culture, have always loudly proclaimed that not tipping your wait staff is morally repugnant. The same is nowhere near true of watching advertising. For another, tipping waiters is the result of a long-standing cultural problem of underpaying wait staff, and most employees of restaurants needing to make money off-the-books because they're paid so little that being taxed on top of it is insult after injury.
Your entire stance is sort of ridiculous.
posted by shmegegge at 5:19 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
"We, as a culture, have always loudly proclaimed that not tipping your wait staff is morally repugnant."
Where do you get this "we" stuff? Tipping is a payment for services. Not paying is theft. Nothing to do with moral repugnance.
"Tipping waiters is the result of a long-standing cultural problem of underpaying wait staff, and most employees of restaurants needing to make money off-the-books."
Really, you tip waiters because you think they are dishonest and cheating on their income taxes? That's some serious dishonesty projection there and a slander on waiters.
Your entire stance is sort of ridiculous.
My stance is at least consistent. Yours is at best selectively and conveniently inconsistent.
There can be many valid reasons to hate online advertising and to implement ad-blocking. Simply because there is no written contract is a very weak argument.
posted by JackFlash at 6:21 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Where do you get this "we" stuff? Tipping is a payment for services. Not paying is theft. Nothing to do with moral repugnance.
"Tipping waiters is the result of a long-standing cultural problem of underpaying wait staff, and most employees of restaurants needing to make money off-the-books."
Really, you tip waiters because you think they are dishonest and cheating on their income taxes? That's some serious dishonesty projection there and a slander on waiters.
Your entire stance is sort of ridiculous.
My stance is at least consistent. Yours is at best selectively and conveniently inconsistent.
There can be many valid reasons to hate online advertising and to implement ad-blocking. Simply because there is no written contract is a very weak argument.
posted by JackFlash at 6:21 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Of course, a little more ad hate.
Blind ads - One of the newsletters I subscribe to has ads for a place called (I think) The Sprocket, which shows nifty gadgets. However, whenever I click on an ad that shows me a gadget I am interested in, it dumps me on the main page. Really?
Fake Articles - Saw a site advertising some interesting "top secret" pictures from an upcoming movie. Actually click through to the article? "Ummm, yeah, we had them, but, ummm, the studio made us take them down. No, we have no other idea where you could see them." In that case, I called them out on Disqus as disreputable.
posted by Samizdata at 7:16 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Blind ads - One of the newsletters I subscribe to has ads for a place called (I think) The Sprocket, which shows nifty gadgets. However, whenever I click on an ad that shows me a gadget I am interested in, it dumps me on the main page. Really?
Fake Articles - Saw a site advertising some interesting "top secret" pictures from an upcoming movie. Actually click through to the article? "Ummm, yeah, we had them, but, ummm, the studio made us take them down. No, we have no other idea where you could see them." In that case, I called them out on Disqus as disreputable.
posted by Samizdata at 7:16 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Malware and autoplaying video aside, I consider ads to be morally repugnant and I remove them from my life wherever I can. The entire purpose of advertising is to steal my attention and convince me to buy something that I would not otherwise be interested in, and the tactics largely involve making me feel terrible about my life so I'll try their brand of zit cream or whatever. They are pollution - literally an obstacle between me and the actual information I came for, tainting the airwaves with false promises and grasping desire. In the process of all of this unnecessary consumerism we are literally destroying the planet to buy cheap trash that will break in a month. Fuck ads. They are literally making the world a shittier place to live for everyone.
I think the idea that we need middlemen to stand between us and actual content creators is nonsense. If you're a writer and people like your writing, set up a Patreon. People that like your content will subscribe and that money will go directly to you instead of lining some corporate bureaucrat's pockets while you get crumbs off their table.
Why do we need managers? Why can't content creators just band together and make their own website without some dipshit in a suit telling them what to do? The only argument I've heard against this is that in-depth investigative journalism is expensive to fund, and I get that, but why couldn't a group of reporters create a worker-owned collective & pool resources for that kind of thing? The NYT stats listed in the article are that 300 million out of 1.48 billion went to news gathering. Why does anyone assume that this kind of overhead should be sustainable in an era when most of us get our news from Twitter?
Many pages I see in search results are just ad farms, devoid of original content, simply scraping a more popular website or using auto-generated noise to make it look like they have relevant content to my search, doubtless loaded with hundreds of ads that I simply never see. Why wouldn't I want these parasites to die off?
Creators create. A post-ad web is not the apocalypse. Right now we're in the awkward fledgling stage and nobody really knows where to go from here, but stuff like Patreon and Kickstarter prove that the money is there if you're dedicated and have something people are interested in. If people aren't interested in your content enough to pay for it, then maybe you've got bigger problems than what software I run on my devices.
posted by Feyala at 7:49 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think the idea that we need middlemen to stand between us and actual content creators is nonsense. If you're a writer and people like your writing, set up a Patreon. People that like your content will subscribe and that money will go directly to you instead of lining some corporate bureaucrat's pockets while you get crumbs off their table.
Why do we need managers? Why can't content creators just band together and make their own website without some dipshit in a suit telling them what to do? The only argument I've heard against this is that in-depth investigative journalism is expensive to fund, and I get that, but why couldn't a group of reporters create a worker-owned collective & pool resources for that kind of thing? The NYT stats listed in the article are that 300 million out of 1.48 billion went to news gathering. Why does anyone assume that this kind of overhead should be sustainable in an era when most of us get our news from Twitter?
Many pages I see in search results are just ad farms, devoid of original content, simply scraping a more popular website or using auto-generated noise to make it look like they have relevant content to my search, doubtless loaded with hundreds of ads that I simply never see. Why wouldn't I want these parasites to die off?
Creators create. A post-ad web is not the apocalypse. Right now we're in the awkward fledgling stage and nobody really knows where to go from here, but stuff like Patreon and Kickstarter prove that the money is there if you're dedicated and have something people are interested in. If people aren't interested in your content enough to pay for it, then maybe you've got bigger problems than what software I run on my devices.
posted by Feyala at 7:49 PM on September 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Why do we need managers? Why can't content creators just band together and make their own website without some dipshit in a suit telling them what to do? The only argument I've heard against this is that in-depth investigative journalism is expensive to fund, and I get that, but why couldn't a group of reporters create a worker-owned collective & pool resources for that kind of thing?
Because, amazingly, management is its own skill set, and not every content creator has either the time or inclination to develop it, nor should they.
I think the idea that we need middlemen to stand between us and actual content creators is nonsense. If you're a writer and people like your writing, set up a Patreon. People that like your content will subscribe and that money will go directly to you instead of lining some corporate bureaucrat's pockets while you get crumbs off their table.
I'd recommend that you read the links attached in this thread, as they explain exactly how much work it is to run a Kickstarter, and plan out how you want to structure the budget. It turns out that quite a few content creators are willing to work with organizations who make all that go away for them.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:11 PM on September 15, 2015
Because, amazingly, management is its own skill set, and not every content creator has either the time or inclination to develop it, nor should they.
I think the idea that we need middlemen to stand between us and actual content creators is nonsense. If you're a writer and people like your writing, set up a Patreon. People that like your content will subscribe and that money will go directly to you instead of lining some corporate bureaucrat's pockets while you get crumbs off their table.
I'd recommend that you read the links attached in this thread, as they explain exactly how much work it is to run a Kickstarter, and plan out how you want to structure the budget. It turns out that quite a few content creators are willing to work with organizations who make all that go away for them.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:11 PM on September 15, 2015
It turns out that quite a few content creators are willing to work with organizations who make all that go away for them.
So maybe the dynamic needs to reverse, then? Creatives hire management, who answer to them, not vice versa.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:22 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
So maybe the dynamic needs to reverse, then? Creatives hire management, who answer to them, not vice versa.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:22 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you wear headphones, while surfing, you are vulnerable to these obnoxious pop ups that blast dangerously loud noise into your ears. Since the advertisers don't care about the very real risk of hearing damage, I always use ad blockers to protect my health. They brought this problem on themselves, and they can reap what they sow.
posted by Beholder at 8:34 PM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Beholder at 8:34 PM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
One could say the same thing about a business model in which waiters depend on tips to make a living. No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?
At least you have the opportunity to move to a country that doesn't buy into such a stupid business model. No such luck with the internet.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 9:00 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
At least you have the opportunity to move to a country that doesn't buy into such a stupid business model. No such luck with the internet.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 9:00 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
At least you have the opportunity to move to a country that doesn't buy into such a stupid business model. No such luck with the internet.
Hey now, hey now now.
Sing North Korea to me.
posted by Mezentian at 4:14 AM on September 16, 2015
Hey now, hey now now.
Sing North Korea to me.
posted by Mezentian at 4:14 AM on September 16, 2015
My philosophy here is guided by a few axioms:
The corollary is: if they stop leaving out wonderful bait, Imma go eat at a restaurant. Like, a fish restaurant. The metaphor obviously breaks down.
The only way I would allow ads back in my browser is if I could alter them myself and have the altered results propagated back to everyone else who can see the ads.
It is absolutely not the responsibility of an adblocker creator to invent a post-adblocked business model.
And if you keep calling it "content," you're participating in a discourse that assumes whatever fills the void between the ads is indistinguishable soylent.
posted by adoarns at 6:58 AM on September 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
- Advertising is semiotic sabotage which has been incorporated into the structure of modern life in a way that is very hard to turn off.
- Advertising is not benign.
- Ad-supported websites are not a product to consume, they are the bait to trawl eyeballs for advertisers.
- Regarding #3, it does make a difference.
The corollary is: if they stop leaving out wonderful bait, Imma go eat at a restaurant. Like, a fish restaurant. The metaphor obviously breaks down.
The only way I would allow ads back in my browser is if I could alter them myself and have the altered results propagated back to everyone else who can see the ads.
It is absolutely not the responsibility of an adblocker creator to invent a post-adblocked business model.
And if you keep calling it "content," you're participating in a discourse that assumes whatever fills the void between the ads is indistinguishable soylent.
posted by adoarns at 6:58 AM on September 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'd be up for a distributor like Spotify, which is priced low enough that many people can access ad-free or premium versions. Musicians obviously aren't making a ton from it, though (though apparently those numbers don't include royalties for songwriting). previously
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:45 AM on September 16, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:45 AM on September 16, 2015
Where do you get this "we" stuff? Tipping is a payment for services. Not paying is theft. Nothing to do with moral repugnance.
What on earth are you talking about. Declining to tip someone isn't theft, it's just a shitty thing to do. No one has ever been charged with a crime for declining to tip. However, there are literally entire scenes in movies about what a shitty person you would be if you didn't tip a waitress. So, to address your original point that "No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?" the answer is "yes, actually a number of people ask you to agree to that business model. All of American society makes it a point, socially, to encourage tipping your wait staff."
Look, your entire argument boils down to saying that tipping is the same as watching ads because both involve money. There is no additional logic to what you're saying here. There's no other similarity between a waiter or waitress and someone who makes content on the web that is relevant to this discussion. And with the OP making a fairly nuanced and well thought out point, and days of metafilter commenters also making nuanced and well thought out points, you're just stamping your foot and going "NO! I DON'T LIKE IT!" This isn't discussion, it's a temper tantrum.
posted by shmegegge at 10:20 AM on September 16, 2015
What on earth are you talking about. Declining to tip someone isn't theft, it's just a shitty thing to do. No one has ever been charged with a crime for declining to tip. However, there are literally entire scenes in movies about what a shitty person you would be if you didn't tip a waitress. So, to address your original point that "No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?" the answer is "yes, actually a number of people ask you to agree to that business model. All of American society makes it a point, socially, to encourage tipping your wait staff."
Look, your entire argument boils down to saying that tipping is the same as watching ads because both involve money. There is no additional logic to what you're saying here. There's no other similarity between a waiter or waitress and someone who makes content on the web that is relevant to this discussion. And with the OP making a fairly nuanced and well thought out point, and days of metafilter commenters also making nuanced and well thought out points, you're just stamping your foot and going "NO! I DON'T LIKE IT!" This isn't discussion, it's a temper tantrum.
posted by shmegegge at 10:20 AM on September 16, 2015
I don't think the tipping thing is a particularly useful parallel but i find it bizarre that you can't see any comparison. Both are non-contractual relationships in which one party offers the other something of value based on the implicit expectation that they will get something in return - a tip or an ad view. In both cases, the recipient of the value may find ways to opt out of their side of the implied bargain, by blocking ads or not tipping. Value-providers who are repeatedly burned by the voluntary nature of these transactions may attempt to protect themselves by making them mandatory - mandatory gratuities, blocking content for blockers. Much like the restaurant diner implicitly agrees to the bargain by eating in restaurants and is morally questionable if he does so and then fails to tip, Internet users implicitly agree to the bargain when they visit sites they know are created with ad money and are morally questionable if they then back out.
Which doesn't mean I don't do it - I block trackers rather than ads, and I justify it to myself on the grounds that intrusive tracking is new enough and not well understood enough to be part of that kind of implied bargain. But as someone who, until fairly recently, had my salary paid out of ad dollars, I do feel guilty about that.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:02 AM on September 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Which doesn't mean I don't do it - I block trackers rather than ads, and I justify it to myself on the grounds that intrusive tracking is new enough and not well understood enough to be part of that kind of implied bargain. But as someone who, until fairly recently, had my salary paid out of ad dollars, I do feel guilty about that.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:02 AM on September 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
"You're just stamping your foot and going "NO! I DON'T LIKE IT!" This isn't discussion, it's a temper tantrum."
Nowhere did I say anything of the sort. It seems you are projecting again.
Jacquilynne gave a well reasoned response above if you simply don't like the way I said it.
posted by JackFlash at 12:18 PM on September 16, 2015
Nowhere did I say anything of the sort. It seems you are projecting again.
Jacquilynne gave a well reasoned response above if you simply don't like the way I said it.
posted by JackFlash at 12:18 PM on September 16, 2015
(No criticism or disrespect to any involved, but I am giggling about how this last bit to the thread is perfectly Metafilter: no longer arguing the topic at hand, instead arguing about the accuracy of a metaphor about the topic. Perfectly Meta.)
posted by LooseFilter at 12:23 PM on September 16, 2015
posted by LooseFilter at 12:23 PM on September 16, 2015
Musing: I wonder if a single Spotify-like distributor could offer packages like cable providers do (e.g. "News Outlets That Pay for Actual Reporting"), or a menu of a la carte selections, for a slightly higher price than a generic subscription would be (e.g. basic cable), but less than subscriptions to individual sources are currently. Or a package plus individual add-on selections. (This obviously cuts out access for people who can't afford it, but that'd be the same as it is for print media, and they could still let some freebies loose like they do now.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:29 PM on September 16, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:29 PM on September 16, 2015
My question remains (and sorry if this is really obvious! If so I will just read some more) - do these ads actually generate money for ad agency clients? Do they provide value?
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:31 PM on September 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:31 PM on September 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Meanwhile, Facebook just announced a new option where advertisers only pay when the entire ad from top to bottom has been displayed ("100% in-view impression"). For video ads, the 100% display will supposedly be measured and verified by a third-party company (Moat). This seems like an escalation.
Wonder if the pricing of ads with this feature would be higher, since it offers somewhat of a "guarantee" to advertisers.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 10:06 AM on September 17, 2015
Wonder if the pricing of ads with this feature would be higher, since it offers somewhat of a "guarantee" to advertisers.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 10:06 AM on September 17, 2015
One could say the same thing about a business model in which waiters depend on tips to make a living. No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?
Waitstaff add value to my dining experience. As such if they perform well, I give them money. Ads do no such thing. Really, this of basic economic theory.
If waiters were as annoying, intrusive, useless and dangerous as online ads, I would consider it my moral right tip NOT tip then.
"HI! WELCOME TO MCAWFULS!"
"Hey, we've been waiting outside for ten minutes can we get-"
YOU CAN HAVE A TABLE IN A MINUTE! IN THE MEANTIME, THERE'S SOME GIRLS AROUND THE CORNER IN THE ALLEY WHO ARE DYING TO MEET YOU!"
"No, my wife and I just want to- Hey, get your hand out of my pocket!"
"NO PROBLEM! WE JUST WANTED TO SEE YOUR YOUR CREDIT CARD! WHILE WE'RE GOING TO YOUR TABLE HERE! JUST PUT YOUR HOME ADDRESS ON THIS FORM TO WIN A NEW TV!"
"HI!"
HI, could we see the wine list?
"SURE, BUT FIRST WE'RE GOING TO SHOW YOU A FILM ABOUT THE NEW TOYOTA CAMRY!"
"Sorry, my wife and I don't drive and-"
"WIFE? HI! SHE MUST WANT SOME VIAGRA FOR YOU! JUST GIVE ME YOUR CREDIT CARD!"
"Do you even have a menu?"
"HI! WE'RE STACY!"
"AND CAROL!"
"AND WHILE YOU ENJOY YOUR SHRIMP SCAMPI, WE'RE GOING TO BUMP AND GRIND AND TELL YOU HOW TO BUY GOLD!"
"AND ALL ABOUT RUSSIAN BRIDES! YOU WANT AN ASIAN GIRLFRIEND WITH YOUR SOUP, RIGHT?"
In a free market I can go to restaurants that don't abuse the customers. Likewise, in an online free market I can buy apps that enhance my browsing experience. If the content providers don't like the lack of income, they can find some other way of exchanging value. Or they can go out of business, and it'll serve them right.
posted by happyroach at 11:05 AM on September 17, 2015 [5 favorites]
Waitstaff add value to my dining experience. As such if they perform well, I give them money. Ads do no such thing. Really, this of basic economic theory.
If waiters were as annoying, intrusive, useless and dangerous as online ads, I would consider it my moral right tip NOT tip then.
"HI! WELCOME TO MCAWFULS!"
"Hey, we've been waiting outside for ten minutes can we get-"
YOU CAN HAVE A TABLE IN A MINUTE! IN THE MEANTIME, THERE'S SOME GIRLS AROUND THE CORNER IN THE ALLEY WHO ARE DYING TO MEET YOU!"
"No, my wife and I just want to- Hey, get your hand out of my pocket!"
"NO PROBLEM! WE JUST WANTED TO SEE YOUR YOUR CREDIT CARD! WHILE WE'RE GOING TO YOUR TABLE HERE! JUST PUT YOUR HOME ADDRESS ON THIS FORM TO WIN A NEW TV!"
"HI!"
HI, could we see the wine list?
"SURE, BUT FIRST WE'RE GOING TO SHOW YOU A FILM ABOUT THE NEW TOYOTA CAMRY!"
"Sorry, my wife and I don't drive and-"
"WIFE? HI! SHE MUST WANT SOME VIAGRA FOR YOU! JUST GIVE ME YOUR CREDIT CARD!"
"Do you even have a menu?"
"HI! WE'RE STACY!"
"AND CAROL!"
"AND WHILE YOU ENJOY YOUR SHRIMP SCAMPI, WE'RE GOING TO BUMP AND GRIND AND TELL YOU HOW TO BUY GOLD!"
"AND ALL ABOUT RUSSIAN BRIDES! YOU WANT AN ASIAN GIRLFRIEND WITH YOUR SOUP, RIGHT?"
In a free market I can go to restaurants that don't abuse the customers. Likewise, in an online free market I can buy apps that enhance my browsing experience. If the content providers don't like the lack of income, they can find some other way of exchanging value. Or they can go out of business, and it'll serve them right.
posted by happyroach at 11:05 AM on September 17, 2015 [5 favorites]
The web has turned into the supermarket check-out aisle.
posted by telstar at 8:46 PM on September 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by telstar at 8:46 PM on September 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
One could say the same thing about a business model in which waiters depend on tips to make a living. No one asked you to agree to that business model. Does that justify stiffing waiters?
Sure, you convinced me. If I get bad service at a restaurant, I'm going to stop going to that restaurant.
I bench-marked a number of key sites last week on two different computers with different hardware profiles. I did it with and without uBlock's standard filters, and then I did it with an even more aggressive default deny policy. Disabling uBlock increased the processing time between 4 to 10 times, assuming the scripts involved ever went idle, which they didn't about 20% of the time. On some sites, the scripts involved crashed the tab on a minority of loads. Some pages took over a minute of additional post-processing after fully loading and rendering the Document Object Model.
That's bad service. That's worse service over better hardware and better bandwidth than I was getting a decade ago.
I suspect the problem isn't that adblock goes to far, it's that it doesn't go far enough, and we need to start blacklisting both the third-party advertising providers and the content providers who offer abysmal service.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:00 PM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sure, you convinced me. If I get bad service at a restaurant, I'm going to stop going to that restaurant.
I bench-marked a number of key sites last week on two different computers with different hardware profiles. I did it with and without uBlock's standard filters, and then I did it with an even more aggressive default deny policy. Disabling uBlock increased the processing time between 4 to 10 times, assuming the scripts involved ever went idle, which they didn't about 20% of the time. On some sites, the scripts involved crashed the tab on a minority of loads. Some pages took over a minute of additional post-processing after fully loading and rendering the Document Object Model.
That's bad service. That's worse service over better hardware and better bandwidth than I was getting a decade ago.
I suspect the problem isn't that adblock goes to far, it's that it doesn't go far enough, and we need to start blacklisting both the third-party advertising providers and the content providers who offer abysmal service.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:00 PM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
My question remains (and sorry if this is really obvious! If so I will just read some more) - do these ads actually generate money for ad agency clients? Do they provide value?
I can answer this:
They do, indeed, generate money for ad agencies.
They get paid, and they can show hits and all to prove they are working.
The agencies talk in parseltongue about calls to action and the like, and advertisers do, in fact, spend tens of thousands to book advertising.
The clients? Yes, I reckon they do get a return on investment (some of them).
And, Google pulls in the cash selling courses in how to advertise on Google/Facebook and "social".
Is it worth it? Is there value in it? I think yes, overall, for brand awareness.
Hell, if spam is any indication, for the Nigerian 419 spam scam or whatever, for the gutter-advertisers, there are suckers spawned every minute.
posted by Mezentian at 5:24 AM on September 18, 2015
I can answer this:
They do, indeed, generate money for ad agencies.
They get paid, and they can show hits and all to prove they are working.
The agencies talk in parseltongue about calls to action and the like, and advertisers do, in fact, spend tens of thousands to book advertising.
The clients? Yes, I reckon they do get a return on investment (some of them).
And, Google pulls in the cash selling courses in how to advertise on Google/Facebook and "social".
Is it worth it? Is there value in it? I think yes, overall, for brand awareness.
Hell, if spam is any indication, for the Nigerian 419 spam scam or whatever, for the gutter-advertisers, there are suckers spawned every minute.
posted by Mezentian at 5:24 AM on September 18, 2015
Marco Arment pulled Peace from the app store. He's conflicted about The ethics of modern web ad-blocking
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:27 PM on September 18, 2015
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:27 PM on September 18, 2015
You know, just at the historical moment that cable TV customers might get their first chance to buy a-la-carte channels--just as HBO becomes a standalone subscription service--the web could stand to have its own cable-esque evolution.
Imagine this: rather than micropayments or individual site paywalls, you have content networks that have a communal paywall for access to sites that are included in that network's family. You pay a flat monthly fee, and you get access to however many sites' content as a package.
Just as cable TV channel bundling subsidizes the less-popular channels (Bravo, Sundance) with money attracted by the blockbusters (ESPN), a content network system on the web could be a huge boon to local newspapers and small publications. This sort of regular income could fund real salaries and journalism, instead of by-the-word clickbait garbage.
Not only that, but if several content networks existed, the "house style" or choice of sites they include might be a helpful guide for users/readers to gauge quality. So, if the network that includes The Toast decides to pick up another site in its family, that alone might be an endorsement of a heretofore unknown new site. (We already have this after a fashion with the Gawker network, but as a negative example-- lots of people see the Gawker brand and know they'll hate it, whatever the site is!)
This is essentially the same model that made cable TV successful, and it's the same model that Netflix and Hulu and other streaming systems use.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 2:45 PM on September 18, 2015
Imagine this: rather than micropayments or individual site paywalls, you have content networks that have a communal paywall for access to sites that are included in that network's family. You pay a flat monthly fee, and you get access to however many sites' content as a package.
Just as cable TV channel bundling subsidizes the less-popular channels (Bravo, Sundance) with money attracted by the blockbusters (ESPN), a content network system on the web could be a huge boon to local newspapers and small publications. This sort of regular income could fund real salaries and journalism, instead of by-the-word clickbait garbage.
Not only that, but if several content networks existed, the "house style" or choice of sites they include might be a helpful guide for users/readers to gauge quality. So, if the network that includes The Toast decides to pick up another site in its family, that alone might be an endorsement of a heretofore unknown new site. (We already have this after a fashion with the Gawker network, but as a negative example-- lots of people see the Gawker brand and know they'll hate it, whatever the site is!)
This is essentially the same model that made cable TV successful, and it's the same model that Netflix and Hulu and other streaming systems use.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 2:45 PM on September 18, 2015
Maybe this was mentioned upthread and I just missed it, but I worked as a journalist (long-ish ago now) and newspapers in fact DON'T just run any ad that appears. Ads have to meet standards of (minimal) truthfulness, good taste, etc. We would not have run an ad that said GO FUCKING USE GODADDY! (No f-bombs.) I routinely pulled ads for escort services and prostitution services because the latter were illegal and the former were unethical. We would not have run an ad that obscured the text of our stories, or rendered our newspaper unreadable by gluing all the pages together. We did not run ads that closely mimicked editorial content in such a way as to deliberately confuse readers.
Content creators do need to get paid, and I don't have a cosmic problem with advertising as a way to do that. I have myself received paychecks funded by ads for creating content. But content providers -- websites, newspapers, whatever -- have an obligation to provide at least a minimal level of quality in that advertising. I'm not going to let random code execute on my computer; I'm not going to let every piddly website in the world track me forever; and I don't want to see NUDES NUDES NUDES flashing at the top of my screen when I click on a current news story about Japanese parliamentary debates on a mainstream news site. I also rapidly disable a lot of "moving" ads because I get physically nauseated when I catch them out of the corner of my eye, and I don't think I should be subjected to VOMITING because ad networks blow and websites don't give a shit, especially when I've followed a shortened or masked URL from facebook or twitter.
I whitelist sites that I support and that provide at least a minimal level of quality on the ads. Metafilter has always done a great job with ads that don't make me physically ill or make me have to cover the screen so my children don't see naked people. (That the ads are typically topical and from companies I'm at least passably interested in is a nice bonus.) The Toast is another one on my whitelist (although I've blocked a couple of their specific ads). On the flip side, I've quit visiting NYMag's Vulture blog because the ad content got too overwhelming and bad and I had to use a blocker or it crashed my browser (after screaming at me about perfume for 20 seconds and covering whatever article I tried to read).
But yeah, I'm going to use adblockers when visiting sites as a one-off, unless and until sites start providing a minimum level of quality and editorial control over their ads. I promise not to be back and steal your content with my eyeballs if you have shitty ads. But I'm not going to browse the internet un-adblocked when there are flashing, screaming naked penises around every corner who all want to put trackers on my computer. Not gonna happen. The ethics of this do not fall entirely -- or even mostly! -- on the consumer. For a long time we understood that the ethical burden of advertising fell on publishers. I understand that good guys are suffering for bad actors' actions, but I don't think that automatically shifts the burden away from its traditional location of the publisher.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:09 PM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]
Content creators do need to get paid, and I don't have a cosmic problem with advertising as a way to do that. I have myself received paychecks funded by ads for creating content. But content providers -- websites, newspapers, whatever -- have an obligation to provide at least a minimal level of quality in that advertising. I'm not going to let random code execute on my computer; I'm not going to let every piddly website in the world track me forever; and I don't want to see NUDES NUDES NUDES flashing at the top of my screen when I click on a current news story about Japanese parliamentary debates on a mainstream news site. I also rapidly disable a lot of "moving" ads because I get physically nauseated when I catch them out of the corner of my eye, and I don't think I should be subjected to VOMITING because ad networks blow and websites don't give a shit, especially when I've followed a shortened or masked URL from facebook or twitter.
I whitelist sites that I support and that provide at least a minimal level of quality on the ads. Metafilter has always done a great job with ads that don't make me physically ill or make me have to cover the screen so my children don't see naked people. (That the ads are typically topical and from companies I'm at least passably interested in is a nice bonus.) The Toast is another one on my whitelist (although I've blocked a couple of their specific ads). On the flip side, I've quit visiting NYMag's Vulture blog because the ad content got too overwhelming and bad and I had to use a blocker or it crashed my browser (after screaming at me about perfume for 20 seconds and covering whatever article I tried to read).
But yeah, I'm going to use adblockers when visiting sites as a one-off, unless and until sites start providing a minimum level of quality and editorial control over their ads. I promise not to be back and steal your content with my eyeballs if you have shitty ads. But I'm not going to browse the internet un-adblocked when there are flashing, screaming naked penises around every corner who all want to put trackers on my computer. Not gonna happen. The ethics of this do not fall entirely -- or even mostly! -- on the consumer. For a long time we understood that the ethical burden of advertising fell on publishers. I understand that good guys are suffering for bad actors' actions, but I don't think that automatically shifts the burden away from its traditional location of the publisher.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:09 PM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]
We would not have run an ad that obscured the text of our stories, or rendered our newspaper unreadable by gluing all the pages together. We did not run ads that closely mimicked editorial content in such a way as to deliberately confuse readers.
Boy, things sure have changed now.
Wrap around ads that mimic the actual cover of the paper to advertise the SALE OF THE CENTURY and, worse, peel-off stickers that obscure the front page headline or story are but two of the terrible things I have seen recently.
posted by Mezentian at 7:19 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
Boy, things sure have changed now.
Wrap around ads that mimic the actual cover of the paper to advertise the SALE OF THE CENTURY and, worse, peel-off stickers that obscure the front page headline or story are but two of the terrible things I have seen recently.
posted by Mezentian at 7:19 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
The Verge's podcast this week featured Farhad Manjoo from the NYTimes and they discussed ad blocking both from the customer perspective as well as from the content site hosting ad supported traffic.
posted by mmascolino at 9:13 AM on September 19, 2015
posted by mmascolino at 9:13 AM on September 19, 2015
The Fake Traffic Schemes That Are Rotting the Internet
posted by tonycpsu at 11:06 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by tonycpsu at 11:06 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Adblock Plus sells out, will allow paid ads through
GPL adblockers plz?
posted by benzenedream at 1:18 PM on September 24, 2015
GPL adblockers plz?
posted by benzenedream at 1:18 PM on September 24, 2015
ABP is already GPL, it just chooses to whitelist ads. Switch to uBlock Origin.
posted by Bangaioh at 1:42 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Bangaioh at 1:42 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
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posted by R a c h e l at 6:37 PM on September 14, 2015